Mr. Jim Breslin:

I appreciate that the suddenness of the escalation poses a question for the committee about the timing and that this issue is at the heart of things. Everything I say will be verified by the records which will be supplied. In August the HSE and the Department were briefed on the worrying escalation in the guaranteed maximum price, GMP, process which was still ongoing and did not conclude until November. Up until that point, as shown in Table 1, €61 million had been declared as the cost escalation figure.