Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)

The Deputy is quite right; there have been delays. We are now in a position whereby the contractor will be in place in January and it is to be hoped the project will be completed in 2028. The Deputy omitted to say, perhaps in error, that in the intervening period since the preliminary business case was completed, inflation in the construction sector has been running at 40% or more. It is a complicated and challenging site. It is a city centre site and heritage building. It is not straightforward. As with all of these things, there are elements that come to light after the fact that would not necessarily have been to the fore until the detailed design was initiated.

There is a significant cost differential. My Department has guidelines we have to adhere to. Those guidelines were adhered to. No moneys were expended prior to the initial response I gave a while ago, when I made reference to the figure of €6.5 million. We are now in a position, thanks to a Government decision arrived at in the past fortnight, to proceed. The Crawford Art Gallery is the only national cultural institution wholly outside of the city of Dublin and represents a massive part of our national development plan allocation in its entirety.

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