Mr. Jim Breslin:

There are so many figures that it can become confusing.

We have tried to capture the figures on pages 2 and 3 of the briefing note. It is important to note that the €637 million tender cost in table 3 of the three contractors, namely, BAM, Mercury and Jones, is included in the €983 million that was signed off by Government. It is not that the cost went from €637 million to €983 million. The cost of the three contractors forms the overall figure along with matters such as equipping, VAT and so on. The real shift over the procurement process was from €983 million to €1.4 billion. The point has been made that previous iterations of the project had other costs but that is the real shift in the procurement stage and I have not tried to lessen the importance or gravity of that. I absolutely agree with the Deputy in regard to its seriousness.

As for learning, we absolutely need to do things differently. My understanding is that the witnesses before the committee on the last occasion this was discussed stated they would still use the two-stage approach. Nobody would claim that all of the actions were appropriate or that things could not have been done to try to manage this better. We must determine to the greatest extent possible what went wrong. I have some indications in that regard but I want to see what PwC says. We will fully implement its recommendations.