Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 7 March 2019

Public Accounts Committee

Oversight and Implementation of Capital Projects and the Role of Public Officials on State Boards: Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the Office of Government Procurement

9:00 am

Mr. David O'Brien:

Yes. Throughout that process, there was quite a spread of prices in tenders. Where this project is concerned, it is, as the Deputy stated, a bespoke project and, because of its size and scale, it carries particular risks. Therefore, the market is going to take a view at a given point in time as to what it believes the construction cost is going to be. The reason the two-stage process was chosen in this case was because of the scale of the project in comparison with the standard market.