Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Any expert I spoke to said it was an amazing decision to give the developer effectively a blank cheque. I have a second precise and forensic question in terms of what went wrong here. It is my understanding that the architects and other professional services companies who worked on the project were on a fixed percentage fee and as the costs continued to rise, their fees rose too. I would appreciate it if the Taoiseach could confirm if that is the case and, if so, what is the cost to the public because in terms of the basic architectural works done in the initial first drawings, when the project cost goes up €500 million one gets another €10 million, €20 million, €30 million or €40 million. Is that the case? Has the Taoiseach worked out whether that happened? If so, what was the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform doing signing off on a two-phase project where the developer is given a blank cheque for any additional costs and signing off on fixed fee professional fees so that the public was on the hook? As the project got bigger, everyone did well except for the public.

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