Mr. Derek Tierney:

We have taken a different procurement approach and a different approach as we enter into the contract.

What we did on the maternity hospital is well under way. We separated the enabling works from the main works contractor to de-risk the main works contractor under specialties going in. Those works are under way and that contract is now live. If one goes out to St. Vincent's, one can see that is up and running and we are clearing sites. We are getting that site ready.

When I look at the process around how have we structured the procurement, we have a detailed design going into the procurement. We have not just once, but twice, carried out two independent third-party reviews of that design for robustness to ensure that it reflects a true bill of quantities to support that and all our budget estimates are based on a quantified risk assessment around that design taking the learnings from not only this project but international projects as well to inform what the budget construct should be.

Ultimately, the budget will be set once we complete procurement of the main works and the specialties. That will be brought to Government for sign-off and agreement.

There is another thing we are doing in the construct of lessons learned. Before we sign any contract with a construction contractor or reserve specialists we will enter into a six-month pre-service contract period. This is to bring all the parties together, integrate all the parties and make sure everybody is clear about what the intent is and that any open questions are answered before we sign down contracts.

We have put more granular tender delay costs into the contract and we are also increasing the higher threshold claim amount. Currently, a claim can be triggered from around €500. We are increasing that to €2,500 to, I suppose, encourage collaboration and that issues are dealt with at the very outset rather than letting them snowball and introducing an opportunity to just keep piling in claims over the course of that contract. Therefore, we have taken a different tendering approach and we are talking a different approach in how we set up the contract and how it can be administered.