Mr. Michael Phillips:

We would get the approval of the project board and once we had all those approvals, the contract would have been for us to sign off. If somebody complains to the EU - any citizen can do that - the EU will investigate whether it is state aid or procurement. In our case it came out in favour. Therefore the advice given was that it was okay. If we were found to be at fault on the state aid, we would have had a difficulty, depending on the issue with which it found fault.

The EU gave us a clean bill of health because in its view we were operating to market conditions or those which could be used by a private investor. In that sense, the advice we were given was fine. We have been cleared by them and the EU procurement office.