It is all about equivalence between the military and the Department of Defence, but the origins of this is the independent review group. It called it. It produced its report. It was terrible reading for all of us. It made recommendations of the most fundamental kind and, above all, that the external oversight body would be independent of the Defence Forces for the very reasons Deputy Boyd Barrett outlined. Whether that be fair or not, that is what the independent review body said. I met the independent review body.…

Sorry, the Deputy is missing my point. I was referring to a debate in the other House, when some people questioned whether the independent review group was correct or went over the top in its conclusions. They were coming from a certain perspective. It is one I heard-----

There were attempts, after the report of the independent review group was published, to question whether it went over the top and all of that. That happened too. Where there has been resistance, there has been resistance to some of what the IRG said. There has been resistance to the idea of cultural change. It is there. Resistance to the oversight body is part of that resistance. People might not like me saying that, although not in this House. I take the bona fides of the Deputies here.

The oversight body is not meant to be representative.

Sorry, I thought I had----

We engage with the representative associations all the time on a whole lot of matters. I have no problem with that. The independent review group said it wants an independent body that is independent of the Defence Forces. If you have two bodies, you would have to have four or five-----

You would have to have four or five bodies on it then-----

As it stands, section 24 provides the statutory basis for the Minister for Defence to authorise the Permanent Defence Force representative associations to associate with ICTU. This is very positive and represents a significant step forward. I am already on record as clarifying that the amendments proposed by the Deputies would remove the mechanism by which associate membership of ICTU would be approved and so would undermine a core policy intention of this section of the Bill. I have already spoken about the import…

We are affirming the right to representation; there is no going back on that. What we are talking about is an advance on the position that obtained prior to the introduction of this legislation. The purpose of this legislation is to put on a statutory basis defence representative associations’ right of association with ICTU. I anticipate that will advance even further in years to come. There is now a fairly elaborate framework for engagement between the Minister, the Department and the defence representative bodies…

I will respond to Deputy Howlin's point first. He knows that when we frame legislation, we have to create a framework for eventualities in the future when certain things may happen that we cannot yet comprehend. There must be some framework over the process of association to cover potential future eventualities. Suffice to say that the direction of travel is clearly one of representation and giving statutory underpinning to an association with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, which is what we are doing. Th…

On Deputy Berry's point, there may be merit in allowing the appeal to go through to get ultimate clarity. I have no intention of bringing forward amendments to any further legislation. It might be useful all around if clarity was brought to the question through the appeal. There is merit in going ahead. I would like to get finality for everybody's benefit, including that of the Department.

Ní aontaím leis an Teachta. Is é an rud is tábhachtaí ná go mbeimid in ann an t-ospidéal seo a chríochnú agus go háirithe, in ann déileáil go láidir le BAM. Maidir leis na dátaí atá ag an Teachta, go bunúsach tá BAM freagrach as an t-ospidéal seo a chruthú. B'fhéidir nach bhfuil sé ar intinn ag an Teachta é seo a dhéanamh, ach tá dáinséar ann go bhfuil sé ag argóint i bhfabhar BAM. What I am going to say to the Deputy is that he needs to be very careful in the sense that he is not being used as a pawn-----

-----in terms of a very strong and robust engagement between the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board, the Government and BAM. All the deadlines he came through with there are deadlines that BAM set. It is likely to be part of a commercial strategy by BAM to try to extract more funding and more money from the Irish people.

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 devel…

The deadlines to which the Deputy refers have all been submitted by BAM at different times. I am not sure whether he is saying we should go straight to the High Court or Supreme Court and suspend all work on the project. I do not know if that is the Deputy's suggestion to the Government. Our objective is to get the hospital completed as quickly as we possibly can. BAM has submitted about 2,782 claims, of which 2,182 have been substantiated at a value of approximately €785 million. That is the value assigned by BAM.…

This hospital is urgently required for the children of Ireland. It will be transformative compared to what we currently have in Crumlin or Temple Street. Of that there is no doubt. There have been significant advancements on the project. The Deputy did not quote the comments from the chair of the board in respect of the current update, that all the tower cranes have been removed from the site and so on.

The Deputy raised an issue on the ventilation grilles, if he remembers, and claimed that tens of millions of euro would be required. It subsequently turned out not to be the case. The point I would make to the Deputy is that inadvertently, whether it is the intention or not-----

-----Sinn Féin is a pawn now of where the contractor, in my view, wants this to go.

That is what is going on here.

The contractor has been delaying and has not been resourcing the project properly or comprehensively. It is hoping there will be this kind of engagement here in Dáil Éireann to keep pressure on the Government and the politicians-----