Mr. Paul Sheridan:

Following the awarding, it should be based on life cycle costing and the whole life cycle value. The Government construction contracts committee, GCCC, is looking to introduce ECI on a broader basis to deal with complex projects. It is not a deposit. It is the tendering costs and the overheads of actually sitting down and pricing a job. If it is complex and you are involved in design and build, it will be more complex and it will cost more to be involved in that process.

It has to be commercially attractive to contractors. Depending on how the procurement process is set up by the client, which is usually the public client, it makes it attractive or unattractive. That is why we see variances in people going for different jobs. We are really talking about procurement reform. If we look at successful projects like the Dunkettle roundabout, the large pharmaceutical plants and data centres that are built here that go unseen, the huge amount of the capital budget that goes on building new schools all year around that nobody hears about, the Luas, and the Europort, which some of my colleagues here have delivered, they were all done on time and within budget, so it can be done. It all depends on how we set out the procurement process and early contractor involvement, ECI, is the solution. That is why we have called for reform of public procurement, to avoid situations where parties get into dispute. What we need them to be doing is actually problem solving. There is an idea that it is pay-as-you-go but it is not. The new engineering contract, NEC, contract for BusConnects, for example, is a highly rigorous contract. Parties have to have an open book and show the costs. They are getting paid for the actual costs. This is not profiteering because what parties do is look at the actual cost of something. It costs that to build it.