Mr. John Pollock:

When we received approval for our business case in April-May 2017 it was the €983 million approved business case. That was approved by the Government.

In late 2017, the issue of the sprinklers, the statutory issues with Grenfell and two of our contractors getting into financial difficulties with the urgent care centres at Connolly Hospital Blanchardstown and Tallaght Hospital were identified. Consequently, as Ms Conroy said, we apprised the HSE and the Department in late 2017 of the €60 million increase in costs at that stage. Through 2018, as our design team was concluding the second stage, phase B procurement process, it reported to us on a monthly basis. Up until the middle of 2018, with the exception of the €60 million in late 2017 pertaining to the issues I mentioned earlier, it was reporting that we were on budget. In August, our design team apprised us of the €200 million issue of which we apprised the HSE and the Department. At that stage, we said that we needed to conclude the process before we could make any recommendation on what the final price would be. In parallel, we undertook to look at alternative options because we did not have to appoint the contractors; we had the option of not appointing them. We looked at alternative options of procurement and when the design was fully completed, we could have gone back out to the market to retender it. We looked at that option and that would have added an additional €300 million to the costs that are now being reported and would have delayed the project by up to two years. Our board made the recommendation to the Government that the current procurement strategy remained the right option and that the current contractor should be appointed for phase B.