Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

The background to it was a contract put in place in May 2013 for three years for the provision of a service with an option to extend for two further years. That would have brought it up to May 2018. The spend on that in total was €5.7 million during those five years, which is an average of about €95,000 per month. Since May 2018 the contract has been extended on six occasions. The combined expenditure under the extended contracts to the end of 2022 was €11 million, which is an average of about €198,000 per month, so the rate of expenditure was doubling. The projected further contracted cost from January to August 2023 was €4 million or €500,000 per month. As I said, it is kind of connected with the difficulties the board is having. The board takes the view it was appropriate and that it is compliant, but having examined it I take a different view on that.