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

The Deputy has to be aware that the make-up of a consortium changes over the course of a bid, particularly a PPP bid of this length. As he is aware, this has gone on since 2015. That was always recognised in the contract documents. The contract documents also set out very strict criteria to ensure that whenever a change occurred it did not in any way undermine the basic strength of the proposal. That process of pre-qualification approval was done entirely independent of either me, as Minister, or the Secretary General, by an independent team of experts with a panel, including the National Development Finance Agency, NDFA. This was an independent process.

What has happened here is that the finalisation of the investment includes Oak Hill, which will have a substantial minority shareholding, but Granahan McCourt will continue to be the controlling interest. It was always envisaged, and other PPP projects are the same, that the equity commitments of the different partners will only be decided at the concluding stage. That is what happened in this case. There is nothing unusual about it. I believe it can be said that Oak Hill has a very substantial financial strength that even a review online will reveal.

See this speech in context