Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I accept that. We are probably agreed in terms of what needs to happen. I have raised this with the Attorney General and Minister for Finance and the consistent message I get back is that it is not a matter that we can fix in domestic law. It is not my area of expertise at all, so I am very happy to be wrong on this, but my understanding is that what we need is a change to European procurement law, because that is what binds us. Perhaps Deputy Doherty and I can work together on exactly that endeavour.

I apologise if I was not clear. I thought I did give two examples. I want to caveat this by saying I would need to see exactly what was said. Deputy Doherty spoke very fast, and he spoke for quite some time. He said a lot of stuff, so I was trying to remember. I am more than happy to be incorrect on these issues. I believe he said that these specialists in the company raised concerns which were ignored. I think he said that but if he did not, he should please correct me. The point I am making is that I am not entirely sure but I guess the board would not agree with that characterisation. I am sorry but there were an awful lot of points raised.

The issue Mr. Tierney spoke to related to the stop order. Deputy Doherty definitively stated that the works had stopped. By the way, that may be the case. All I am saying is the assistant secretary, to the best of his knowledge, is not aware that there was any such stop order. If there was, that is absolutely fine.

I will finish on this point. I know members of the board appeared before the Committee of Public Accounts last night and gave a detailed rundown of this. If I have any of those details wrong, I apologise.