Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I thank Mr. Conlon for his response. What precise difference would it have made, which is where I believe we have a problem, where it was not possible to ascertain what the difference would have been? People speculated about it. If X, Y, or Z had been done, the following would have been the outcome, but would it have changed dramatically from what the outcome has been so far?

For instance, there was a debate about vents, air conditioning and so on. Why and when did that become a problem? Was that not identified at the design stage? Was it not pointed out? Was the design not followed by the contractor? That is something we are not able to find out, despite all of the fun and games. We will be following up on this again but I am concerned that on the one hand, we need to have strong safeguards to protect the taxpayer and the State in general. However, if we increase the strength of invasiveness to such an extent that it becomes impossible to proceed, then we are at a net loss. That is one of the allegations made against the various public contracts over the past number of years, that is, that we have increased the control to the extent that it is impossible to comply or, if having complied and having gone to great deal of trouble and cost to do so, we then arrive at a situation where the actual cost is back to where it started because of all the inputs we have made to ensure adequate protections were there for the taxpayer. I am not saying that that should not be done but the outcome of it is what it is.