Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

At the Select Committee on Health I asked the Minister whether an instruction had been given to PwC, further to the Dáil vote, which included that of his own party, that analysis be done of the cost and timing implications of a site move. The Minister said that he did not know whether he had passed that request on to PwC and he said that he would come back on that. Did the Minister do so? If not, will he still consider so doing?

The most disappointing part of the PwC report was its failure to identify any cost savings. It essentially said that 85% was contracted and that was that. That is not a rigorous commercial approach. If this was a private company and it was looking at its own money, it would be much more creative. It would say that 85% was contracted and ask whether it could be renegotiated or recontracted with the same bidders. It would also ask if there was anything that could be done with the very expensive design to get the cost down while protecting the integrity of the project. Is the Minister willing to pursue that further than PwC's conclusions?

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