Mr. Damien McCallion:

We have a new national director for strategic capital and estates. He has put a plan together on this. Dublin will go to tender either at the end of quarter 4 or very early in quarter 1. That will include, I think, two machines in Rathgar and that process involves an implementation period of approximately four months. We can come back on the specific timelines post the tender process, but the tender will go out either very close to the end of the year or very early next year. The plan is to also have replacements scheduled in Cork and Galway.

In many countries, the machines go beyond the manufacturer's time - they are maintained - but I accept the point. There is one out of four out of action. It has an up-time of about 90%, so ideally that would be reduced. There is scheduled maintenance and so on required around it in terms of how they operate. Estates, under our new director, has put a plan in place on that and we will be working with the NCCP on that. We talked about it again in the last couple of days in the context of the committee.

There is a tender already developed and it will go out in quarter 4 of this year or in early quarter 1 of 2026. The plan then is to move on and also have a full replacement plan in profile for expenditure on those. They are complex projects to implement because you are trying to maintain a service as you replace them, as I understand it. There is about a four-month window for implementation. I take on board the point about St. Luke's. I think two machines are from 2016 and four are from 2008. However, they are operational and, as I said, they maintain a 90% up-time. Notwithstanding that, we want to get to a point where they are replaced. The tender will go out and the plan is to move on to Cork and Galway from there.