Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The OPW and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, to a greater extent, are in an invidious position here because while they are the consenting and assessment authority, they are also the paymasters. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has made ample money available to us in the OPW to carry out the works, so that is not an issue in this context. The issue is that if this endeavour were to fall flat on its face by way of a judicial review, then the whole process would have to start again. The delay in the last 12 months has caused upset for the people of Crossmolina, which is natural because this scheme is very important for those living in the town. If we did not take the advice we got from our Department officials, however, to recommit the scheme to another round of public consultation and then submit that information to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, the potential to have a greater number of judicial reviews, above and beyond what we would normally expect anyway, would be enormous and the whole scheme would probably have fallen flat on its face. This is what we were trying to avoid.

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