Ms Katherine Licken:

There has been considerable construction price inflation over the past number of years. We have a strategic policy unit which does a sector-specific methodology for us in order to comply with the spending code. We build in the contingency and forecast inflation in order that we give as accurate a cost as possible to the Government when it is making decisions on funding.

In building in the contingencies, part of the regime is to go in. For example, in the National Library, the west wing has been decanted of all the collections and it is now empty. There are holes in the wall where the OPW or the contractors have gone in to look at the fabric of the building and see if there are issues which will arise before ever going to tender that we need to know about. Whether we could have ever known about the watercourse under the gallery, I do not know, but in the library you can see the evidence of us putting time and money in before going to tender to understand what the fabric problems might be, as opposed to saying “Here’s a lovely new project. We’ll go to tender for it.”