Mr. Maurice Buckley:

I will respond to all the comments that were made in that protracted period. The most important thing to understand is that when you have a long 25 or 30-year contract like we have, if a dispute or issue arises along the way, that is clarified and agreed with the parties and it is addressed in the contract. While that is being done, the correct legal practice is that you do not stop the payments first. Rather, you continue to pay the contractual amounts and you deal with the dispute separately. It is a technicality - and I am sure the Comptroller and Auditor General will agree with this - in any disputed contract you deal with the dispute but while that is being dealt with you are legally obliged to carry on servicing the contract as written. There are 14 years in this and there is no mad urgency to it. It is important to get this correct. We do not want to be in complex legal disputes that cost money and we will get this correct. It is not as simple as just applying the terms. The contract itself is simple but the circumstances are not, as Mr. Bourke explained. We will address this.

There is a balance here. In this committee we are looking at the financial terms of the contract and, as the Accounting Officer I also have to look at the overall project of the Convention Centre Dublin and its success in building delegate numbers so that when that comes back to the State in 14 years time it will be a healthy business that the State can then pick up and drive forward. That is the balance.