Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Following on from my earlier questions and linking together two issues that have come up, namely, the bike shed and the security issue, as I said earlier, I am familiar with the area. The witnesses stated that the place the OPW initially proposed for the bike shed would have cost significantly less than the one the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission opted for in the knowledge it would cost considerably more, if I understood what they said. I think they said the OPW had not had an exact estimate of how much more but that it was made clear to the commission that it would cost a lot more to put it where it ended up going.

The commission's opposition to the OPW's more cost-effective proposal related to security, but bicycles already enter from Merrion Street via that security hut - hundreds of them, I would say - and they are covered from the rain under the Department of agriculture, using just racks that I imagine cost next to nothing. It was just down from there that the OPW had proposed we would put a more cost-effective, cheaper bike shed. The security is dealt with, therefore, at that gate, past that security hut. There is no other security issue once someone gets past that gate.

Even if we were being doubly cautious, in any event there is another security gate, beyond where the OPW had proposed the shed would be put, which people can get through only with a security pass or if one of the ushers or service officers allows them in. I am bemused as to what possible security advice could have prevented the original proposal made by the OPW for a much cheaper bike shed. I cannot see it. Was any explanation, further than security concerns, given to the OPW as to why its original proposal was rejected by the Houses of the Oireachtas Commission? I cannot for the life of me see what the security issue would have been.