Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not accept that PwC is in a position to say that this should not be revisited, and I do not see the evidence for that in its report. It has not given us the evidence and has not done the necessary work. It was not the correct organisation to review this. It addressed the peer review issue by saying: "An external perspective, frequently in the form of a peer review, is often needed to help identify potential weaknesses and to provide assurances to the various levels of governance." That is another way of saying that people on the board did not have the competency to mark the design team. Who made the decision that there was to be no peer review team? We need to know.

The Tánaiste has said that there was a gross underestimation that should have been flagged earlier. Public benchmarking is an advanced estimation of what works would cost. I asked a question about whether public benchmarking was done for this project. I was told that no construction benchmarking exercise was carried out prior to the issuing of tenders in 2016. That is unheard of for a project such as this. Who made that decision? Is anyone going to be held to account? I do not understand that. I was provided with the spend on advisers on this project from 2013 to 2019. The quantity surveyors Bruce Shaw got €9.9 million. What has it done? Mr. Robert Watt appeared before the Committee on Public Accounts and said that his Department was given commitments relating to the approximate bill of quantities that underpinned the contract and the accuracy of those estimates. They did not turn out to be accurate. Who gave those commitments? Why will nobody answer these questions? The bill of quantities for the second stage was based on a preliminary design. That is nuts. It is not done in the engineering industry. It is supposed to be based on a detailed design. It is unheard of. Was the board competent? Was the legal advice good? Was it wrong? Are McCann FitzGerald going to be held to account?

The Government must be thanking its lucky stars that the world is currently being exercised by the spending of €100,000 which is being discussed at the Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport. We have given PwC €450,000 and it has not provided an adequate report as far as I am concerned. We are looking at a loss of €500 million here if the issue is not revisited. I am convinced that this project can be completed for much less. The biggest problem now is that we do not know how high the price will go. The price is estimated at a certain level at the moment, but it will rise way beyond that price. If the final price rises above €2.05 billion it will be the most expensive hospital ever built in the world. It makes no sense not to revisit it.

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