Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy can be as robust as he wants in his questioning of me and accuse me of whatever he wants, but he must then let me respond.

He has just said the phrase “a couple of tens of millions”, which is exactly what his party colleague said on RTÉ, and he referenced the fact that this could take a year. What I am stating very clearly is that the agency we have managing the project on our behalf flatly refutes that. In fact, not only does it refute it but it points out that the costings have not been done. The point I was making is that we just need to be very careful that, in our best efforts, we are not in fact furthering the agendas of different groups of people involved in this. Why have they got workshops? It is for the very reason that we have discussed, which is because the matter has been raised and they are bringing the experts together to look at this.

I think the Deputy’s characterisation of how the board has responded to this, if I may say so, is very unfair. I do not mean to cast any aspersion on the committee whatsoever, of course, but the Deputy is making some fairly serious allegations as to the competence of the board, which is entirely his right, but it would only be fair for the board to be able to respond to these points. Certainly, on the Chair's point, we will provide a detailed note back to the committee and, to the best extent possible, we will address the issues raised.