Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Local authorities are probably not too bad in this regard but there is a large number of private houses that still have single-glazed windows. Unfortunately, they are generally the homes whose inhabitants are on the lowest household income. People are caught in a catch-22 situation. We will request that information.

The next correspondence is 1345B from Mr. Robert Watt, Secretary General of the Department of Health, dated 6 July 2022, providing information requested by the committee regarding the overall expenditure to date on the national maternity hospital project. It is proposed to note the correspondence and publish it to the website. Is that agreed? Agreed. It caught my eye that from 2014 to 2022, there was a sum total of €95.3 million spent on the national maternity hospital. I do not know whether there is a plan for construction and what the situation is regarding the site, the legalities and so on. There was a deal signed off recently. I do not know whether any of the members or the Comptroller and Auditor General can help me out on this. I can understand why there would be survey costs and that various different consultants had to be brought in to do different pieces of work, but nearly €100 million has been spent and I have not even seen a drawing. How does one spend €100 million and not even have the JCBs on site, as I often say? In fact, this amount was spent before we even had the deal for the site signed. It is an incredible sum of money. Can Mr. McCarthy shed any light on it?