Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

Does the Minister not agree that this looks to the public like he has simply blown away €700,00? First, the Department spent €200,000 directly on a process which did not seem to offer any type of result. I understand three companies - Goodbody Corporate Finance, Matheson Ormsby Prentice and Mott MacDonald - were involved in that. Did they fail completely to offer any type of basis for a competitive tender? Were they at fault in this regard? Second, the Department allocated €500,000 to the DAA for providing what amounted to some type of a benchmark. Did the Department not already have from CAR the Dublin aircraft charges determination for 2010 to 2014? Did the Department spend money twice in order to obtain the same result in each case?

In regard to the pre-qualification tenders, did the major companies in Europe with which we are familiar, including Ferrovial, British Airways, Servisair and so on, participate? Will the Minister indicate which companies put in any type of tender bid to operate the terminal? Has this entire process merely been a €700,000 scam to enable the Government to come forward and say to workers in the airport that their wages must be slashed by 40% or 50% because terminal two cannot afford them at existing rates? Does the Minister agree he has gone through an elaborate charade that cost the State €700,000 and which next year my colleagues and I in the Committee of Public Accounts will be investigating? The €700,000 squandered is in addition to the Minister's ongoing bill of some €110 million.

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