Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 27 January 2022

Public Accounts Committee

National Transport Authority: Financial Statements 2020

9:30 am

Mr. Hugh Creegan:

The plan has to be flexible in terms of time because it is subject to a couple of things outside of our control. The Government has to make its decision to allow the project to go into the planning process and we do not know how long the planning process will then take. It has taken different time periods in various projects across Ireland. There is then the issue of potential judicial challenges at the end of that process. While there are indicative budgets, we can only fix the budget when we come out the other side of the planning process and know exactly when we can start the construction. Everything else is a plan that may have to change depending on what those external factors dictate.