Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As soon as the Minister, Deputy Harris, was informed at the end of August or beginning of September that there was the potential for a significant overrun here compared with the outline figure in 2017, intensive work was done, while the gross maximum price, GMP, process was happening, to crystallise what those costs might be before the process came to an end. When that information was understood at the beginning of November, it was given to the Minister, Deputy Harris, who immediately made sure that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform was informed. From then until December, when the Cabinet made its decision, work had to be done to make sure we knew exactly what had happened in terms of the scale of the costs and how it would be managed by future budgets. The issue was brought to the Cabinet in December for decision as to where to go from there. The decision was taken to proceed with the hospital and to then have an intensive investigation into how this happened

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