David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Okay but it was slightly less than €500 million. The Minister was the Minister for Health during all of that so when he paints the picture of four years, of 14 completion dates that have come and gone, four times over the last 12 months where BAM has missed its completion date, not providing the human resources to get the project done, no room of standard that is complete, and additional money having to come from the taxpayer and be signed off by the Cabinet, I do not believe anybody can describe this as a success story. I assume if the Minister for Health was sitting in my place he would make exactly the same argument to me that this is unacceptable under the watch of a Minister for Health.

One of the things I asked the Minister to do was to take a more hands-on approach and meet with all of the stakeholders. When I argued that the Minister should meet with all of them, including the contractor, this was pushed back. We were told that we cannot believe anything the contractor says, not to fall for that, and accept the word of the board. Yet, as we know, last week the Minister met the parent company, Royal BAM, which I believe was the right move. When did the Minister reach out to the parent company?