Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

As there are no other members looking to come in, I will do so. I walked around the outside of the site yesterday and I saw that the outer shell is clearly taking shape. A number of people are working outside in that regard, but the big challenge is we do not know what is happening inside. What we have heard this morning about the level of work and the fitting out that needs to be carried out is worrying. Coming into the meeting today, we still do not know how much it will actually cost, we do not know when the hospital will be built, we do not know when it will be fitted out, and we do not know when it will be opened. I think that is a fair summary of the information we were given.

It is welcome news that a meeting is due to be held on the compliance programme. It would have been helpful if we had heard about it before today's meeting. That is disappointing in itself. I do not think any of us here have a background in construction. My background was labouring at one stage. Perhaps Deputy Hourigan has a background in regard to some of the data. It is difficult for us to understand a build of this size. I do not think any of us have any real experience of something this large. The worrying thing, from what the witnesses are saying and what I am picking up this morning, is that they believe there are not enough workers on site and that the project is not moving ahead at the scale it should be. I presume that is down to the number of people on site. To give an example, I think most of the windows are in at this stage. As part of fire safety, ducting has to be moved and it may have to go back to the centre. The likes of the windows automatically opening in the event of a fire is one of the fire safety elements. The windows are in but I do not think the electrics for them has even started. I do not think a price has been given for the computerised system in relation to that. That is just one example. I am trying to get a sense of what is happening there.