Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I again thank the Minister for his candour. This has very little to do with inflation. The Mazars report confirms that the gross area has not increased either. We know that no additional bedrooms, operating theatres and so forth were added and, therefore, the overrun is not due to a larger hospital. The Mazars report states that the vision and functionality for the hospital did not change throughout this entire process. We can both agree with that.

I come now to the design team. The Mazars report has much to say about this team. In its analysis, it attributes an increase of €94 million on second stage measurement to the design team getting the quantities wrong. It attributes another €92 million to programme and preliminaries associated with the design team getting their initial quantities wrong and it states that the value engineering target was missed by €50 million, which it again attributes to the design team. We have only had the report for two hours. By my count, Mazars attributes between €230 million and €240 million in additional overrun to the design team and to the calculations it got wrong.

Page 21 of the report states: "The design team did not highlight or signal the looming capital budget overrun." The design team fees for the project were agreed in 2017 at €44 million but that the team asked for more money and a year later the €44 million was increased to €71 million, an increase of more than 60% in fees for the design team. Will the Minister identify the design team?

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