Expenditure Reviews Dail Éireann — 2026-01-29 ============================================================ Mark Wall (LAB), Kildare South The Minister will be aware that this was highlighted by the Comptroller and Auditor General at a meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts recently. Obviously, concerns were raised at that meeting that, as the Minister correctly said, this project was initiated in 2015. At that stage, the cost was €2.2 million. The cost indicated to my colleague, Deputy Kenny, is that it has now risen to €6.4 million, and we are still at the pre-project phase. What lessons have been learned? The Minister mentioned the report he received. What lessons have been learned about the overrun of almost €4 million? I have no doubt, given the job the Minister is doing, that an extra €4 million in his budget would be very welcome for him as well as for the many students about whom I and all colleagues in this House ring the Minister. What has happened in the meantime in the Department? What is it doing about the €4 million overrun? What will the final cost be on this project which, as the Minister said, is badly needed? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-29/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-29