Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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The Ministers and Ministers of State are welcome. I wish Ms O'Connor the best of luck in her new job, which is not an easy one. We wish her the very best with it.

I want to focus on the timeline for the children's hospital and who knew what and when. In April 2017, the Cabinet approved €983 million. As the Minister stated, in August 2017, concerns were raised about an additional cost of approximately €60 million. That has been referenced before. I understand that the next time the Minister knew about cost escalations was on 27 August 2018, a year after this initial issue of €60 million was raised.

Today's edition of The Irish Timescontains details of minutes from project management meetings which show that, at project management and board levels, issues of costs were continuously being raised, month after month. In March 2017, there was a recommendation that the concerns on the issue of the GMP were escalated. Eight senior HSE officials and three senior Department of Health officials were present at earlier meetings. In April 2018, the minutes show that further cost issues were discussed. In May, which is particularly relevant, in response to increasing cost concerns, an assistant secretary from the Department of Health advised the board to go before Government prior to the budgetary process. That is critical because, obviously, these kinds of cost overruns are relevant to a budgetary process.

Can the Minister confirm that he was not made aware of any of this? He signed off on the cost of €983 million in April 2017. In August 2017, he was made aware of the €60 million increase and was told nothing else until August 2018 when he was told the cost escalation was in the range of several hundred million euro?