Ms Maria O'Dwyer:

Regarding Uisce Éireann delivering value for money for the State, it starts with the rigorous investment planning process, the prioritisation of our outcomes and the transparent monitoring we have in place. We have robust governance in place across all of what we do in the capital programme.

When it comes to contracting and sourcing, to ensure compliance with our legal and governance requirements, we are very mindful of managing the risk and protecting Uisce Éireann and the taxpayers' money. However, we seek the most cost-effective, technical and feasible solutions depending on what we are doing. We have a contract strategy in place that is set up for ourselves as a national utility and we adapt different procurement approaches depending on what we are doing, be it the value, time, complexity, capability of the contractors or the work we are doing.

We have established a large number of frameworks.

We probably have access to 50 different suppliers through those. We go to the market to test tenders periodically. This is to ensure that we are still getting value through those. Large complex jobs go out subject to EU procurement rules, and we very much adopt a most economically advantageous tender, MEAT, approach. It is often the quality as much as the value. In general, when we look at our supply chain, we do an amount of early contractor involvement that is open book. We do not believe our contractors are making significant margins. It is middle-single digits. We are very conscious that it is important for us that those in our supply chain are able to invest in their people and plant and that it is important that they can grow for the future as well. We are going to need them if we are to overcome the infrastructure challenges we have here today.