Under the public spending code, the benchmark figure is the basis for determining value for money for any major project. Reading through the memo from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment, it is very clear that they raise serious questions about the public spending code being breached by the Department in respect of the national broadband plan and contract. This illustrates the degree to which the Government was spinning and not telling the full truth on this all along. The memo confirms the original estimate was €500 million. In September 2017 the benchmark figure was €800 million. The memo is asking how the €800 million became €3 billion in a year and a bit. The Government was saying to us that it was a different project. It was not a different project. It went from €800 million in September 2017 to €3 billion. Very clear questions are raised in the memo, which notes that the public spending code requires that approval of the sanctioning authority for a raised financial limit be sought before contracts are placed. It states further that the revised projections appear to be derived from the views of the bidders' technical solutions and the outcome of the dialogue process with the bidders, as opposed to having been independently calculated. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is raising a red flag in terms of the breach of the public spending code on this project. Is the Government going to review the basis on which the public spending code operates, given what is clearly an extraordinary breach of or diversion from it and the ignoring of the procedures that should be followed under it?

There was no breach of the public expenditure code. The public expenditure code requires that before a procurement process occurs, an estimate is provided. In this case, as the Deputy knows, the procurement process was to identify the best technology and approach in an area in which we did not have a proven knowledge. This procurement process identified what the approach was by having an open competition, a competitive dialogue.

The Taoiseach was untruthful last week when he answered the same question.

Deputy, please.

The two bids that came forward were comparable in scale. Those bids of course were substantially greater than the estimate that was put in. That estimate was not on a foundation of a clear projection.

It is not an estimate; it is a benchmark figure as per the public spending code.

Let the Minister answer.

When that higher projected cost occurred, there was, as the public spending code provides, a complete revaluation to see if there were alternatives that could deliver this.

No, that is not what it says.

In accordance with the public expenditure code, those alternatives were evaluated.

Has the Minister read it?

I call Deputy McDonald.

That is not what is stated in the memo at all. It is completely opposite.

It is not a debate - question and answer.

It was a benchmark figure.