Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I want to reiterate everything the Cathaoirleach has said. This situation is completely unacceptable. The attitude and position of the Department are nonsensical. We are at a very advanced stage of contracting. As the Cathaoirleach has said, the Department is not able to give us even an estimated figure for the final cost of this project. The one thing we can say with absolute certainty is that the previous cost estimates are way out of kilter with where we are likely to end up. While we accept that there will always be some level of commercial sensitivity involved, the difficulty is that the Department has yet to outline the particular issues with this project preventing the information the Cathaoirleach has outlined from being provided. We need to bring the development board and the Department back before the committee at the earliest possible opportunity.