Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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I will make another point. Deputy Burke mentioned that construction inflation has increased dramatically.

We hope since most of the building work has been completed although the contract itself burdens the entire cost of any inflation over 4% on one side. It is mind boggling how so many people looking at a contract could not see a danger in that When we first raised it which is not that long ago only since 2020 and inflation had started to creep up at that point. We were told by the Board that they did not envisage this coming into play at all, that we would reach 4% of construction inflation. The figure of 4% sounds lovely, right now because we are into multiples of that. An estimate from the Department in respect of how much that particular clause is going to actually cost in terms of construction inflation and hopefully Deputy Burke is right that most of the actual costs in terms of building materials had been incurred prior to the most recent taxes.

We hope that was since most of the building work had been completed, although the contract itself burdens the entire cost of any inflation over 4% on one side. It is mind-boggling how so many people looking at a contract could not see a danger in putting the entire onus on one side. When we first raised the issue in 2020 and inflation had started to creep up at that point, the board told us that they did not envisage this 4% figure of construction inflation coming into play at all. A construction inflation rate of 4% sounds lovely right now because we are into multiples of that. An estimate from the Department in respect of how much that particular clause will have an effect in terms of construction inflation would be helpful. Hopefully, Deputy Colm Burke is right and most of the costs in terms of building materials had been incurred prior to the most recent impacts.