Mr. John Conlon:

Just from recollection, and I need to double-check this but we can get the information to the Senator later, I think the OPW would have spent about €1.5 million on this over recent years. In response to her earlier question about value for money and the previous chairman's comments, the OPW is in a position where we have this legal obligation to construct this. As I have outlined in my opening statement, there is the issue of value for money, on which I am sure whatever Department ends up funding this will require some assurance. I think that process would have to be gone through if this project evolves to that stage. That should be appropriately done, in my view, but from an OPW perspective, we are in the position where we have this legal obligation as a builder of the project. I have no funding in my funding base for it. As I have outlined, there is no funding in the NDP envelope to date, so there have to be future negotiations with the Government, the Department of public expenditure, on funding for this. At that stage then, the funding requirement, I would imagine, will come with a value for money assessment requirement.