Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yes. There were three bidders but at the time draft bids were made, two companies made draft bids and they were both of the same order of magnitude. It was not that some of the others were coming in with very different scales of bids. We then entered into the very detailed due diligence process that I described to Deputy Stanley, where we went through international benchmarks for the cost of each component of what was being proposed, such as how we would deal with clawback, the management of risk and performance tests. This was to ensure that, with international advice, we got the best value and that the deal we would bring forward to the preferred bidder stage would be robust from the taxpayers' point of view.

That exercise was carried out. That is what took the very considerable time between the lodgement of the preferred bid in September and the point when the Government was able to take a decision.

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