James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)

It strikes me that the arbitration process the OPW is engaged in is taking place in some sort of parallel universe. The OPW goes in there, understands what is in the agreement and understands what it is going to be bound to for that agreement. One of three things is going to happen. Either the OPW is going to build this building at the cost of €70 million, which is the estimate, or it is going to pay damages to the equivalent of the cost of the building, which is €70 million, or it will come to some sort of consensual agreement in relation to ICML's claim for the moneys that the OPW is going to invest to build a national science centre. One of those things is going to take place. The OPW is going in there and no line Department has given it any instruction that there will be any funding commitment whatsoever. Whatever the arbitrator agrees in terms of timelines for delivery, there is zero capacity for the OPW to deliver on that timeline in the absene of an intervention from a line Department. Is that a fair assessment?