Mr. David Gunning:

I want to reset and make sure we are all dealing with the same set of facts. The approved investment by Government from the end of 2018 for this project is €1.433 billion. That includes the construction contract, which is the BAM works and it includes the additional costs of the development board, the design team and other related charges which come in. Of that €1.433 billion, as of right now €1.13 billion has been spent. We are still below the Government approval, therefore, but there are cost pressures on that. I do not mean to be reminding the Deputy of the following point but outside of that approval there were already a number of items that were not given definitive quanta within that €1.433 billion approval. We had items outside of that, such as inflation, which we have talked about already and which we can go through again. There was the cost of defending the claims, which was significant, and there were additional costs due to Covid and Brexit. There would have been some change in cost due to regulatory change of the design but not much. That is the position and the major contributor to the cost increase as we look forward is delay. The contract is in delay and a lot of discussion can be had on that.

Certainly, there is no doubt that the current construction environment and current set of uncertainties with regard to what Brexit, Covid-19 and other aspects have inflicted on the contract are significant. That will all be fought out as to who has to pay for that in the conciliation and dispute resolution and possibly the High Court. As I have already summarised, at the moment, we see we are responsible for €9 million of that €500 million or so of the costs. Where we are responsible and the contractor has an entitlement, we have paid that money, as we are required to do. That is the actual position.

As I mentioned earlier, as we look forward, there is a process ongoing to look at those additional costs, primarily the ones due to prolongation and how those will be quantified and then ultimately approved for additional capital approval by the Government. That is where things stand currently.