Mr. Maurice Buckley:

It is a very difficult situation. Sometimes the situation can be analysed and we can see the quote is too low because of X, Y or Z. That can be addressed and the tender can be eliminated. That does happen. However, there are situations – it happens at the OPW – where an organisation is forced in a certain way because it is a legal requirement in the procurement rules to accept the tender that would appear to be valid. It does happen that during certain projects we spend more of our time in arbitration and conciliation - going through prices and dealing with claims - than on the building sites doing the works, which is where we should be focused.