Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This is nothing personal. Believe it or not, I do not believe the Minister is the one making these mad decisions so I do not hold him to account. I believe, however, that the Government is behaving recklessly in how it is handling this matter. The refusal to re-tender and address the nature of the contract was a serious mistake, and it will cost us close to €500 million. I can only assume the Government will not re-tender because it does not want the project stalled for a period and because it may look bad. There could be an election campaign, during which the work on the hospital would not be proceeding. The view is that if we keep going and spend hundreds of millions of euro more than we should, the project will at least be running. This is all I can conclude. I have asked umpteen questions in here about this. This is our sixth time talking about this. It is mine anyway. I have got very few answers. I put in freedom of information requests and have tabled written questions but I am getting so little information back. I am aware, however, that there are major problems.

I asked why a crowd of accountants were got to do the work. I would have loved to have got close to €600,000 to produce the report. Those concerned even admit the information is not independently verified. How in God's name can we part with so much money for a report that is not independently verified? I do not understand that. I do not know where to start and I have so little time.

PwC tells us we should not stop as it would not be a good idea. There is no evidence for it. Why was the project not stopped? I have asked why no public benchmarking was done. Nobody is telling me why. I do not understand that. We are told it is clear there are lessons to be learned both in regard to this project and other major projects but the lessons are not being learned. If the Government had learned them, it would be dealing with these issues now. It is said the scope and responsibilities of the advisory firms that constitute the design team should be reviewed to reflect their future roles. The consultants' role is to advise the executive. The executive makes decisions and it can ignore or follow the advice of the consultants. The executive advises the board. The board can then deal with the executive's advice. It can take it on board or ignore it. We are not finding out why, what, where and when.

The report states the understanding of the risk profile associated with the procurement and contracting strategy was poor at all levels of the governance structure. Why? The report does not tell us. Every project has a risk profile. I do not understand what is occurring. Did the legal team get it wrong in advising the executive? Did the executive get it wrong in advising the board? Did the board get it wrong? There are so many questions. I wish to God somebody would answer them. It is heartbreaking. We are told a lack of interest from the market was the primary potential risk to procurement. Why? What was done about it? I do not understand why PwC will not look under the covers and tell us why.

The report states the understanding of the risk profile associated with the procurement strategy was poor at all levels. This is because the risk factors were not considered. If the risk factors were not considered, why not? Is anyone going to tell us why? Is this Government just going to keep on going and pretend it is all grand? This is a disgrace. This is too bad. Hundreds of millions of euro have been spent and the Government is just going to keep going, with no explanations as to what went wrong. No one is being held to account. This is a fucking joke. This is too bad.

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