Mr. Robert Watt:

I am here to answer the Deputy's questions and I have brought people with me. I have appeared before this committee many times over the past eight years and if I am not in a position to answer questions, we will communicate with the Chair in the normal fashion. I am here to discuss the oversight and implementation of capital projects.

I did not directly reference the children's hospital but I indirectly referenced it several times in mentioning the experience of recent projects and the lessons we can learn from those. My job, as the person who is responsible for the overall approach to the capital management of projects, is to learn lessons from how we manage projects. Over the past number of weeks, with colleagues and the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, we have debated how to improve the process and I have set out a variety of measures today which the Government has taken and announced, and which I have set out for the committee. They set out a new approach to ensure we manage projects as best we can.

As the Chair has said, and as everybody in this committee knows, I am not the Accounting Officer for the children's hospital and our Department is not the sanctioning authority or the sponsoring agency. We are not involved in the day-to-day work or the evaluation of tenders and the Department is not involved on the national children's board.