Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I put it to the Deputy that I am not going to take debate and I suggest he does not take debate either. For the last few years there has been a very robust engagement through dispute resolution mechanisms. The Deputy will cite hundreds of millions that have been submitted in respect of claims but the net outcome of those claims is actually a fraction of the overall cost of the hospital. In other words, there has been a very robust, tenacious engagement between the contractor, the company in this case, and the development board through the various arbitration methods. Unfortunately, the bottom line is BAM has not resourced this project sufficiently for quite some time. I call on BAM to resource the site adequately and comprehensively to enable this hospital to be completed as fast as we possibly can. The Government is fair and is dealing with this in a fair manner. However, we are not going to tell BAM to finish this at any cost or throw to one side proper procedural approaches as to how claim and counter-claim are resolved and contracts are enforced. That is an important point.

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