Mr. John Conlon:

I thank the Deputy. I am not sure as to how to frame my answer because this is a very complex project. I will frame it in the context of what we are to discuss which is the public spending code and the way in which it has evolved. Part of that evolution has been in response to the cost escalations in that project. There are two emphases I wish to make by way of my response to the Deputy’s question.

My first is that the involvement of a group like the major project advisory group at an early stage brings that key challenge using the expertise it has, which could have improved the planning of that project at an earlier stage. Again, I deliberately use the word “could”, but that process could have added benefit to it.

The second part in which the public spending code has evolved is a better focus on cost forecasting. The Deputy mentioned very many good reasons cost can go awry, such as Ukraine, construction inflation and supply chain difficulties, and these are all factors which impact on any contract, some of which are quite unforeseen. Any contractor or sponsoring agency must adapt to that throughout the lifecycle. It is important to do that in a very visible and coherent way throughout that lifecycle process but I believe costing information at the right time to feed into decisions at an early stage is probably stronger now in the public spending code than it was then, being aligned to the development of a major project advisory group.

Those are the two parts of the revised public spending code which I would like to see as a quite positive response to the difficulties identified.