Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Can we start again? We are coming to the most intricate stages of the contract. It is important that everybody, the client and the builder concentrate on that. The smallest of things can cause an alarm and can lead to bigger things. Then, bigger things can go unnoticed. I have had occasion in the past to look at a number of contracts. I was surprised at some of the things that had gone by without demur but that should have been noticed at an earlier stage.

Earlier I mentioned the bike shed as being a norm against which everything else is now going to be measured. This is slightly more complicated than the bike shed and it is likely to be of major significance in the future. As the contract progresses, are we now reaching the stage where we can engage on a very local basis with the contractor on-site, with a view to identifying issues that we have and discussing them?

If there are issues, can we resolve them? Normally, this is the case on a building site or with the construction of a housing estate or even one house. Traditionally, those responsible for the construction side of a contract do not want to hear too much about the extra stuff that the client wants to add on, but the latter may be necessary. The technique is to ensure that the changes to the contract are minimal but are sufficient in order to meet the requirements that are designated as being the ultimate terms of the contract. Can we be assured that the client is engaging sufficiently early with the contractor in order to alert the builder to the fact that we need to deal with all of this down the road? How are we going to deal with it in such a way as to ensure that there will a resolution before it becomes a problem?