Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail)
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I have no difficulty with what the Chairman said at the last meeting because I joined him, as many did at that meeting, in agreeing with it. At the end of the day, we cannot have the contestants judging the beauty pageant. There is effective admission here that the same few personnel were involved. However, what worries me even more is that the Secretary General does not see a conflict of interest, so God knows what is going on in other capital projects throughout the country if that is the case. PwC is a stand-up company with a global reputation that does excellent work, as does KPMG and so on. There are only a limited number of companies between the two canals in Dublin but we seem to have a peculiar dedication to solely using them. PwC was involved with high-level input. What is high-level input? The fact that it gave high-level input means it cannot review it. It is called an independent review, but that was not independent. Maybe everybody did the best possible job they could, but it is compromised, and its credibility is affected. One of the best Secretaries General, to my mind, in terms of his candid answers here from time to time, is compromising his good name by saying that he does not see a conflict of interest in this, in effect.

The other thing I would say is that there is much a lot of woolly language and high-level expertise from health construction people, but who are they?