Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The work is ongoing in designing a contract and I hope there would not be a very unreasonable delay if a decision is taken to move to a contract. In recent times the State has worked through the details of this application and we want to ensure that if the bid is successful, the governance standards will be highly exacting. The reason for the delay since 18 September, if one likes, is that we are ensuring the level of oversight that the Deputy is reasonably expecting to be there. I cannot give timelines until we have a decision and it would be unreasonable for me to do that. I assure the Deputy that the ongoing work is to ensure that insofar as we can, we anticipate and have the sort of oversight that anyone in the House would expect in light of what would be a very significant investment by the State.

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