Mr. Kevin James:

-----across Ireland. I cannot comment on the Government position on VAT.

What we deal with is risk. When one procures projects on behalf of the public sector, one understands what the supply chain will and will not accept. Our job is to try to mitigate that risk because risk comes at a premium. We can isolate costs and materials. We can understand the supply chain right across the globe and be able to isolate the prices at which we buy those materials. The sectoral employment order sets the bracket for pricing of labour. What we need to be thinking about is the Central Statistics Office, how we index those materials and rely on that information to be able to advise the Government and mitigate the risk in order to get the contractors to come back to the table and tender for public sector projects.