Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The reason I wrote directly to the CEO of Royal BAM was that I simply could not have confidence in the June 2025 deadline for completion. When I met the board, the members were very clear that they could not have confidence in it either. The programme of works the company had submitted to meet that was either deemed non-compliant or as yet had not been deemed to be compliant. As I said to the CEO when I met him, the UK and Ireland unit of Royal BAM's operation had missed its own deadlines 13 times previously. This was the 14th deadline and it was simply not reasonable to ask anyone to take it on faith. At this point, the Government needed Royal BAM to stand over its timelines, to engage with the board, with good faith on both sides, and to make sure that there was a work programme, including feet on the ground and management, and all the things required to meet the June 2025 deadline.

In fairness to BAM, it accepted at the meeting that the hospital's commissioning teams could be given early access. That is important. This had not been agreed up to that point. There is something called the "hot block", which involves laboratories and various other things that take a long time to commission, but if you can essentially-----