Official Report: Minutes of Evidence

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): I welcome Peter May, former DCAL interim permanent secretary. If you want to make an opening statement, Mr May, we will come with the questions after that.

Mr May: Thank you, Mr Chairman. I am only going to say a few words by way of introduction, because the main purpose is to answer your questions. I am conscious, having listened to your earlier discussions, that you have access to many papers, but I have access only to a few. If you want to ask me questions about the detail of individual papers, could you show me the paper you are asking me about so that I can refresh my memory about whether I saw it in the first instance? That would be kind. Thank you.

I was interim permanent secretary and accounting officer for DCAL from May 2013 to November 2014. In my role, I attended steering group meetings and chaired the meetings of the steering group that the Minister was unable to attend. I also attended a number of programme board meetings, which were designed to keep an oversight of the progress being made and the key issues being faced. I also had a key part to play in respect of the spending of public money in my accounting officer role, so I would have signed those funding agreements with governing bodies that were agreed during my time as interim permanent secretary, and I had a key role in agreeing to the implementation of various stages of the contracts; for example, the pre-construction notice and construction notice for contracts for the building of stadia.

While I understand that the focus of this inquiry is on emergency exiting and safety, it is worth reflecting that there was a wide range of issues facing this programme, all of which were being addressed at the one time. The Committee, understandably, wants to focus on one particular issue, but it is important to retain a recognition of the wider issues. For example, during 2013 and early 2014 in particular, there was a major preoccupation with the legal challenge that Crusaders was taking and the state aid issue. There were ongoing issues, particularly during late 2013 and early 2014, with the community acceptability of Casement Park, the planning permission and so on. It is important to recognise that those were all taking place alongside consideration of this issue.

Safety was an essential part of the programme. Without the realistic prospect of achieving the compliance with the safety of sports grounds legislation, there would have been no purpose in building the stadium. Clearly, as accounting officer, it would be inexcusable to build a stadium to one capacity when it could hold many fewer.

The funding agreement, the tender documentation and so on all set out, to varying extents, the expectation that all the statutory requirements would be met. The tender documentation actually specifies that the stadium needs to be capable of achieving that compliance.

I was conscious that these were the first stadia to be built in Northern Ireland for a significant time, certainly of this scale. Casement was the largest to have ever been attempted. Clearly, that is why it was important to take great care in the management of the programme and ensure, through the procurement process, that the successful tenderer had widespread expertise in delivering stadia of that scale elsewhere. In the work that they were going to do in designing Casement, it was clearly important that they understood what was required to meet the green book, or in our case the red book, standards.

I am happy to do my best to respond to your questions. As I said, I do not have an encyclopaedic set of papers with me to be able to go into the nth degree of detail, but I will do my best.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): OK, thank you. You mentioned that you started in May 2013, but I missed the month that you finished in 2014.

Mr May: November 2014.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Thank you.

When you came into the Department in May 2013, Rosalie Flanagan, who had been the permanent secretary, had retired. When you took over, how were you briefed about the issue of emergency exiting? Was it part of a first-day brief?

Mr May: I would have had an extensive first-day brief, covering all of the work of the Department. I have not refreshed my memory of it, but my suspicion or belief is that there would have been some quite detailed material around the progress of the three stadia but that the specific issue of the emergency exit in Casement would not have been part of that. At that time, it was not an issue that was being flagged as central to the work of the programme. It was seen very much as something that needed to be done, but there was not a sense that it had become a potential obstacle to the achievement of the programme. That is my recollection of that stage.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): The safety technical group (STG) minutes and reports were going into the system prior to that. Carl Southern acknowledged the issues in an email to Paul Scott — I appreciate the fact that you do not have it in front of you — on 5 March 2013 and again in STG minutes and reports during 2013. Then, on 10 May, the Populous plans appeared on the scene and showed the possibility of the need to demolish houses to have access and egress. There seems to be an increase in activity — this is based on the papers that we have received from Sport NI — on 30 September 2013 and 9 October, so it is a little bit later that it really takes off. That is during —

Mr May: I have given you my recollection, Chair. As I said, I have not gone back over the first-day briefing that I received. I cannot guarantee that there was not a reference to it. You have to remember that the first-day briefing would have covered progress against all three of the stadia, and it would have gone into a number of the most current issues. The fact that there was what, at that time, probably would have been seen as a relatively technical issue that was being raised and addressed through the normal programme mechanisms may well mean that, quite understandably, it would not have been elevated in the context of a first-day briefing.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): When was it first flagged up to you and brought to your attention?

Mr May: I have tried to remember when that was. I cannot remember a precise date. I think that it would have been towards the end of 2013. I would have received very regular updates from the programme team and the senior responsible owner (SRO), often on a very informal basis; they would have called up, or I would have called down to them once or twice a week just to see how things were going. In the course of one of those conversations, I am sure that they would have begun to mention the fact that there was an issue that was being addressed and needed to be resolved. I do not have a specific date, and I doubt that there was a piece of paper that detailed the first time that it was raised with me; it was almost certainly part of an oral iterative process of my keeping in touch with how the programme was developing.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Can you recall any conversations that you had with the Minister about this particular issue?

Mr May: I do not recall having specific conversations with her about it. She, too, would have received directly briefings from the programme team on a regular basis. I was not present for, probably, the majority of those. I have reminded myself of some of the steering group minutes. It is clear that, from December 2013 and onwards through 2014, references were being made in the steering group meetings to emergency exiting as one of a number of issues that needed to be resolved. During my time, I saw the issue as being one of a number that needed to be resolved. Clearly, safety is very important; it is a sine qua non for the programme. However, in my view, it was not being given the prominence that perhaps some have suggested it had at that time.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): I am raising that because, during October and December 2013 and January 2014, there is a period where there is a higher level of exchanges of information.

Mr May: Yes. It certainly would have come to my notice probably some time around late 2013. I would have been aware that, as I understood it, the issue was that the stadium was able to be exited in a normal emergency; the issue came with scenarios that could be applied as to different sorts of emergency that might apply. I am not a technical expert, but I believe that my role was to ask sensible questions. I wanted to be clear that those scenarios were properly presented and were the sorts of scenarios that would apply to sports grounds elsewhere as well as here. It would take a very significant act to close all of the Andersonstown Road; it is a very long stretch. I passed the stadium just the other day, which reminded me of the scale of what it would take to close every exit onto the Andersonstown Road. As I said, however, I am not a safety expert; rather, I was trying to make sure that a way was found to resolve the issues and to make sure that we were in a position to deliver against the Programme for Government commitment in a way that met statutory requirements, including safety, but was within the budget that was set by the Executive.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): You attended the sponsor board meetings.

Mr May: Yes, and I chaired some of them in the Minister's absence.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): We have the minutes of only one of those meetings, and I understand that we have requested the minutes of the other sponsor board meetings. We have just the one that came through from Sport NI. In that particular one, I notice that there was mention of the presence at the meeting of the Minister's SpAd, Jarlath Kearney, who welcomed everyone to the meeting. Did he attend many of those meetings?

Mr May: I think so, but I do not have a full suite. I think that it was quite normal for him to attend most of the meetings until he left his role.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Did you have any conversations or exchanges with Jarlath Kearney in regard to Casement Park?

Mr May: I am sure that there would have been discussions in regard to Casement Park. I do not recall any specifically to do with emergency exits.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Right, so it is not an issue that he ever raised with you.

Mr May: Not to my recollection.

Mr Ó hOisín: Peter, the last question that I raised with Nick Harkness of Sport NI was this: "Was there ever a formal question in writing regarding serious safety issues as raised by Paul Scott? Was that ever sent to the SRO?". His reply was no but it was sent to you. What was the nature and the content of that letter?

Mr May: I think that you have an email exchange between Antoinette McKeown and me. The first email was from Antoinette on 18 March, and my reply was on 28 March. It starts by saying:

As I recall, I had had a conversation with her in which I had flagged up the fact that the STG was raising concerns and the need for us to find a way of solving those problems together, and she was responding, helpfully, I think, and suggesting that there needed to be a way of the STG becoming engaged in the programme mechanisms. We wrote back suggesting a sensible way in which that could happen.

Mr Ó hOisín: That correspondence that you had was in an email form on 18 March and 28 March. You acknowledged the work of the STG —

Mr May: Yes.

Mr Ó hOisín: The work on emergency exiting and agreed the Sport NI presence on the three steering groups, is that right?

Mr May: Yes.

Mr Ó hOisín: Right, OK.

Mr May: I should say that I do not see that as Sport NI raising a big red flag; I see that as part of normal business in terms of managing issues that are facing the programme. That sort of email exchange would be typical of that.

Mr Ó hOisín: But this was not to the extent that Paul Scott raised the big red flag, as you call it.

Mr May: No. I can certainly be clear that at no point was anyone suggesting to me that there was a Hillsborough-type scenario emerging from Casement.

Mr Ó hOisín: The first that you heard of it was on 30 April.

Mr May: Certainly, the first reference that I heard to Hillsborough was when Paul gave evidence. I knew that there were concerns about emergency exiting — as I said, around the scenarios of emergency exiting. There are ways of managing that, and Nick was quite clear in saying that some of those could involve structural changes and some of them might not. There is a range of different ways of addressing it, and my focus was — in so far as I was not directly responsible, but having an overview — to try to make sure that we managed the process to enable the problems to be resolved in whatever way that took.

Mr Ó hOisín: I know that you were away in November 2014, but were you aware that, from January 2015, Sport NI had distanced itself from —

Mr May: I am afraid that I was not aware of anything after — I have not had any direct involvement in the programme since I left.

Mr Ó hOisín: OK, Chair. I might come back.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): At the departmental board meeting on 8 May 2014, it says that you made reference to the new special adviser who replaced Jarlath Kearney and the importance of keeping the Minister and the SpAd informed of issues as they arise. Were they kept informed of the issues in relation to the potential difficulties where you could end up with a stadium with a build capacity that was much in excess of the safety capacity?

Mr May: Well, I think probably not in those terms, in that I was not foreseeing a situation where we would be — I, as accounting officer, could not sanction a situation that would go ahead to build a stadium with a capacity beyond that which was likely to secure a safety certificate. Certainly, I would not have raised anything like that in those terms. As I said, I think that the papers for the steering group and the steering group itself would have made some reference to the issue of emergency exiting as one of a range of issues that needed to be addressed.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Over a long period, there was a request going for, "Please provide us with some design for emergency exiting to address this issue". That was the request that was going forward because people realised that it was not going to be possible on the existing scheme to have a safety capacity that was equal to the build capacity. You would have had a situation where, potentially, you could build for 38,000 people but you could maybe only put 15,000, 20,000 or 25,000 into it. If there was a long delay and people were not coming forward with it — that seems to be the impression that we were given by the documentation — and designers were not coming forward from the design team to address the issue, you were sitting as the accounting officer and the permanent secretary presiding over a situation where there was a long delay and nothing appearing to address an issue. How would you respond to that?

Mr May: The first thing that I will say is that the first of those requests, you have said, was in March or April 2013. I am afraid that I was not aware that those requests were made at that time. I was aware that there was an ongoing process of dialogue between the stadium team and the STG. Nick set out some of the meetings that had happened in the autumn of 2013, and I think that there had been meetings prior to that as well. So, there may not have been a formal plan submitted, but I think that there was an ongoing dialogue and discussion about what it would take to resolve the emergency exiting issue.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): There was a request for it before you arrived in the Department, as you have just said. When you left the Department, it still was not resolved. How long do you give people to do it? Is there not a point where someone says, "Hold on. This is just impossible to do"?

Mr May: It is not about whether it is impossible or not; it is about what adjustments need to be made in order to make a stadium that complies —

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Do you accept that there could be a point where that would be impossible?

Mr May: I absolutely understand that. The December steering group minutes make reference to Antoinette McKeown and Noel Molloy having a conversation about emergency exiting. In March, Antoinette and I agreed that the safety technical group should be engaged, through the steering groups, fully into the programme. I have a note of a short submission that was sent to the Minister just before the July holidays in 2014, which has three lines at the end of it about emergency evacuation. They say:

That is a further indication that there was an ongoing process. I accept that the Committee might well say, "When was that process going to end?" Clearly, it was in all our interests to try to close down issues as quickly as we could, but we had not got to that point by the time that I left my post, and I recognise that.

Mr McMullan: Thank you for your presentation. I am still a bit mixed up about the red book and the green book.

Mr May: I am not a technical expert either, I am afraid. My understanding is that the green book is the standards that apply in Great Britain and the red book is a Northern Ireland version of the green book. It may vary in some degrees, but my understanding is that it does not vary hugely.

Mr McMullan: Is there a difference in standards between the two books?

Mr May: There may be some differences, but my understanding is that they are not large in number. I do not know the detail of those differences. I am afraid that you would have to ask someone with more technical knowledge than I have.

Mr McMullan: Would it make a difference to a contract if one book was used more than the other, or if one book —

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): I think, Oliver, that we are getting into areas here — Peter has said that he is not a technical expert.

Mr May: It could make a difference if they were material, but I am not in a position to make that judgement.

Mr McMullan: There could be a difference if we use one book rather than the other.

Mr May: The bigger risk is around how you interpret the standards. You have one set of regulators working in Great Britain who are well used to the processes, and you have another set of regulators in Northern Ireland who are used to providing safety advice on a rather different basis.

Mr McMullan: Yes. My question is not to do with the technical side of it. Which book was used for the stadia programme?

Mr May: My understanding is that it was the red book because that is the one that applies in Northern Ireland.

Mr McMullan: The red book was used the whole time.

Mr May: That is my understanding.

Mr McMullan: On safety, when we received the presentation from Paul Scott, we heard of a Hillsborough-type disaster, and heaven forbid that that would ever be the case.

Mr May: I think that Nick was very clear about that earlier. He said that no stadium had been built and no safety certificate had been issued and that there was no risk to any individual. It is important to reinforce that point.

Mr McMullan: That is a point that I am coming round to. Was there any mention of a Hillsborough-type disaster any time before the plans were submitted for planning?

Mr May: No.

Mr McMullan: Everybody was happy.

Mr May: I think that I have recognised that there were ongoing issues to be resolved with the safety technical group, and nobody raised something that said that there was a Hillsborough-type scenario from these plans. Indeed, there was a transparency at the steering group about where we were on each of the projects. Each of the governing bodies and Sport NI were present at those discussions, and nobody at any point said that you should not proceed to planning permission until this issue has been resolved. It was not being flagged as an issue of that scale at that time by any party.

Mr McMullan: We were told about the Hillsborough-type disaster here on the issue of safety, but it was not raised before planning.

Mr May: There was no mention of Hillsborough or anything equivalent.

Mr McMullan: OK, that is fair enough. You talk about the process ongoing and Belfast City Council and all of that. How much was Belfast City Council involved in the drawing up of the plans and the submitting of the plans to planning? What was its role?

Mr May: I am not clear, but I suspect that it did not have a big role because it was not its project. It will have been a member of the safety technical group and will have had sight of the design, but I am not sure that it contributed significantly to the development of papers for the planning permission.

Mr McMullan: It would have had sight of the design before the application to planning.

Mr May: Yes, it was on the technical group, which saw all of the designs.

Mr McMullan: Therefore, it is safe for me to assume that it will have been the same as the rest of the group, happy about the plans going in for planning.

Mr May: I do not know that for sure. What I know is that nobody raised something that said that we should not proceed to planning.

Mr McMullan: Are there minutes or any notes? Is there any written evidence of that?

Mr May: You had better ask the Department. I do not have access to all of the records in my new role, and I cannot answer that question. I am not aware of any records.

Mr McMullan: You are not aware of any records. Are we happy that there is a proper paper trail to all of this?

Mr May: As far as I am aware, a proper record was taken of all of the substantive decision-taking meetings and steering group meetings. There was a proper programme documentation that was subject to gateway review and assessment and so on. I am not saying that somebody could not find something that should have existed but did not, but, so far as I am aware, it was all built as solidly as possible.

Mr McMullan: When we got the presentation from Mr Scott, it was a doom-and-gloom story on safety issues. This does not seem to be the situation prior to applications being submitted.

Mr May: It was not elevated as an issue that would stop us proceeding to planning permission. Mr Scott may or may not have believed that. I do not know. Certainly, it was not drawn to my attention.

Mr McMullan: You said yourself that he was privy to the designs and everything else prior to applications.

Mr May: I think that it was an open book in that the design was always being shared. Nick Harkness explained that it was an iterative process, which is kind of what you would expect. This was happening, of course, not just for Casement but for Windsor. It happened slightly differently for Ravenhill because the STG was established after planning permission was established for Ravenhill.

Mr McMullan: Nobody voiced a concern that this should not be submitted for planning.

Mr May: I do not recall anyone doing so. I do not believe they did.

Mr McMullan: Thank you.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Following up on that, nobody within DCAL — not Sport NI, not the STG — none of the sports officials within your Department, the SRO or yourself thought there was an issue about going forward for planning permission for a plan that might well not have received and, as we now know would not have got, a safety certificate for 38,000. How could you put forward planning permission for a 38,000-seater stadium when it had been flagged up that it might well not get that safety certificate?

Mr May: I was not clear that it would not have secured a safety certificate for 38,000 at the time when the plan was submitted. As I have highlighted, work was still going on through 2014 to try to identify ways of resolving the issue. A number of different options were being considered, some of which would have involved structural change. It is true that if you make any significant structural changes, you need to seek to amend the planning permission, and, obviously, it would depend on the scale of those structural changes. However, the work had not been completed, and I think we all took a view collectively that we had made enough progress to seek planning permission, to take it from there and to seek to resolve the issue in parallel rather than in sequence.

Mr McMullan: Why do you think Mr Scott referred to it as a Hillsborough-type situation? What would have made Mr Scott say that, considering that he had never said it before the application?

Mr May: I cannot put myself in his shoes. I can only surmise that he was indicating that any stadium that had more people in it than was safe would be subject to a risk. As we have already highlighted, there were safeguards to prevent that from ever being the case.

Mr McMullan: By your own admission, that never came up before application.

Mr May: No. I did not have sight of the detail of the safety technical group reports. Nick Harkness read out some elements of those reports, which drew attention to risks that existed. They were precisely the risks that would exist in relation to any safety issue, but they did not go into the Hillsborough-type scenario.

Mr McMullan: And that word never appeared prior to —

Mr May: Not to my knowledge.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Just to confirm what you said, for the record: if an application went in, and a stadium was built that did not comply with the red book, putting that number of people into that stadium would endanger their lives.

Mr May: It is easier to present it the other way, which is that that could never happen because the safety certificate process is there to prevent that happening.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Which leaves open the possibility of building a 38,000-seater stadium and ending up with 18,000 seats lying empty because you cannot use them.

Mr May: To be clear, we had not moved to the stage of issuing a construction notice, which would be the point at which —

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Sorry, Rory Miskelly told us, on 11 December, that construction work would start in January 2015. He came to our Committee on 11 December, four days before the final judgement on the judicial review, and said that it would be on site in January.

Mr May: I know that you will hear from Rory shortly, so it is not easy for me to answer on that. We did have discussions. There were works that needed to be done on the site, such as the demolition of the existing stands and so on, that could have been taken forward, and, at one point, we wondered whether it would be practical to move ahead to take those steps before the judicial review because they would not affect the footprint of the future building. There is some scope there, but the fundamental point is that we had a stadium that met normal emergency exiting requirements. It was about finding ways of managing the various scenarios that were being presented. It was about making sure that a proper risk-based approach was being taken in respect of those scenarios, such that we could maximise the capacity for the stadium.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Of course, it is those emergency, unexpected and unusual circumstances that create a Hillsborough-style disaster.

Mr May: I am indicating that we clearly needed to have resolved those issues in order to be able to move forward.

Mr Hilditch: It is probably lucky that Paul Scott used the word "Hillsborough" because people have sat up and paid attention. Let me make it very clear: one casualty or life lost is too many if it comes down to bad planning, bad strategies or bad process.

Mr May: Safety is an absolute. You absolutely have to comply with safety standards as they exist at the time.

Mr Hilditch: Peter, in your answer to Oliver, you indicated that there were no objections to the planning going in, but the STG had not seen the plans.

Mr May: I believed that it had. I thought that it had seen the designs and commented on them. Otherwise, how could it have raised concerns?

Mr Hilditch: We have been told repeatedly that it had not seen them.

Mr May: I think that it was the emergency exiting plan that it had not seen, rather than the designs.

Mr Hilditch: Yes, which you said was ongoing, yet nobody had been in touch for nearly two years on the [Inaudible.]

STG.

Mr May: I do not think that there would have been no contact. I think that there would have been very regular contact and meetings. I think that —

Mr Hilditch: Nothing had come forward.

Mr May: My understanding now is that no formal plan would have been brought forward on emergency exiting.

Mr Hilditch: Yes, but it has to give the go-ahead, too, or make alterations to your suggestions or recommendations.

Mr May: Nick Harkness, in his evidence, drew out some of the different elements that were being looked at with regard to whether it was possible or sensible to widen some of the exits, to produce a strip of ground along gardens or to create a holding area and so on. There was a range of options that the safety technical group and those responsible for the design were considering and addressing. It is true that there may have been no formal plan produced, but it is not that there was no contact.

Mr Hilditch: Nothing came forward for two years.

Mr May: No formal plan had been produced. I accept that.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): If that was the case, why did neither the permanent secretary nor the SRO in the Department do something to press the issue and move it on? What if this was holding up the spend profile and so creating financial pressures?

Mr May: I was not aware that an emergency exit plan had been requested, so I was not in a position to explore that issue. I was unaware that that had been asked for.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Who should have told you?

Mr May: I am not sure that I would have expected to be told in the first instance. It may be that I would have been over time. As I said, emergency exits increasingly came on to the table as something to be resolved for the next stage of the programme. While a lot has been made of the fact that the initial request was made in March/April 2013, it certainly was not raised at the steering group, or at any of the other forums that I was at, that this outstanding documentation was missing, as it were. I do not know how persistent that was or how exactly it was elevated, if there was such a level of concern about the absence of the plan.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Would you not have expected the senior responsible officer — the clue is probably in the word "responsible" — to alert you to the issue?

Mr May: I do not know whether Cynthia was aware of that request. I have no way of judging that.

Mr Hilditch: BBC news reports over the Easter period alerted the public to the potential of the stadium project grinding to a halt over safety issues. You referred to the many ongoing challenges during that period: the Crusaders challenge, the judicial review and various things. That is not why we are sitting here today. Why was the Committee not told at any point that there was a problem? We had to dig it out ourselves.

Mr May: Do you mean in relation to emergency exiting specifically or the other issues?

Mr Hilditch: That is the issue that has been brought into the public domain through news reports and whatnot as being the big problem.

Mr May: As I have tried to outline, during my time this was only ever seen as one of a number of issues. It was never seen as the pre-eminent issue that needed to be resolved.

Mr Hilditch: The Committee knew about all the other issues. We were told about everything else that was going on. This is the one issue that seems to have been held back.

Mr May: I do not believe that there was any deliberate attempt to do so.

Mr Hilditch: That is OK. I am just asking the question.

Mr May: As I said, it was often raised as one of a number of issues in the context of Casement Park specifically.

Mr Hilditch: This was one issue on which £6 million of public money has already been spent, yet we are no further on. You would expect the Committee to have been told something at some stage.

Mr May: We are further on in the sense that my understanding is that the £6 million produced a design for the stadium and has — [Inaudible.]

Mr Hilditch: to be faulty.

Mr May: It may need to be adjusted. It is a design, and that is the kind of proportion of the overall spend that you would normally expect to be expended on the design phase of the programme.

Mr Hilditch: You would expect to have something more substantial at this stage, given the amount spent and the number of years down the road we are.

Mr May: Clearly, we have hit some delays in delivering the programme. I absolutely accept that.

Ms McCorley: Go raibh maith agat, a Cathaoirleach. Thanks for the presentation. A lot has been covered, but I want to draw out a wee bit more. You were involved in the projects for about 18 months.

Mr May: Yes.

Ms McCorley: There were three stadia, and you were aware that the projects were ongoing and that people were working to try to —

Mr May: Yes, each of the three was at a different stage of development.

Ms McCorley: Issues of concern are common in projects like this, in that issues get worked out along the way. Was emergency exiting a concern raised about Windsor and — what do you call the other one?

Mr May: Ravenhill or Kingspan, depending on whether you take to the new language or not. I recall that, at the time, when Ulster wished to host the quarter-final of the European Cup, a lot of effort was put into completing the construction of Ravenhill in time to enable that. The key issue was whether it would be possible to secure a suitable safety certificate in time for that match, and the work was done. That gave me some sense of how the safety certificate process featured right at the end of the period, after the construction, and that certificate was successfully achieved.

Ms McCorley: Was it a wee bit of a crisis because it was so late?

Mr May: It was not a crisis. It was just one of those things that a lot of people work very hard to make happen because we could all see the advantages of it.

Ms McCorley: The issue of emergency exiting for the three stadia was part of ongoing processes, as far as you were concerned. Is that your view?

Mr May: It was clear that the issue was being raised, particularly in relation to Casement. I do not recall there being a concern about Windsor. It is fair to say that, as we went into 2014, the issue was primarily being identified at Casement.

Ms McCorley: It was not elevated to the level of an issue that required intervention.

Mr May: There were different ways of trying to sort it out, but it was not seen as a red flag, a red rag or whatever language one wants to use.

Ms McCorley: I am trying to clarify, establish and pin this down. When we had the reference to Hillsborough, that was the first time that we had heard about it. Was that a surprise to you?

Mr May: Yes, for reasons that we have already rehearsed quite fully.

Mr Dunne: Thanks very much for coming in today. You heard earlier, in some detail, a clear admission from Sport NI officials that the plans that went forward did not have their approval or sign-off. What is your opinion on that evidence? Is that a good way to do business? As a very senior civil servant who was the last in line before the Minister on this project, how do you view that evidence today?

Mr May: As I tried to explain, I saw emergency exiting as one of a number of issues that still needed to be resolved in order to finalise —

Mr Dunne: Just "one of"?

Mr May: When I was working through this programme, yes. That is the way in which it was being presented and the way in which the reports to the steering group came forward. That is right. It was one of a number of issues. It was a significant issue, and I have highlighted that various efforts were being made to resolve it, but it was not a showstopper at that stage.

Mr Dunne: It was not a showstopper.

Mr May: You clearly need to get it right to make progress. All these issues could become showstoppers, but it was not being raised in those terms.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Was it not a showstopper for the guts of two years?

Mr May: I am not sure that I understand the question.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): For how long was there no forthcoming emergency exiting plan? Was it two years?

Mr May: Yes. I understand that there was no plan, but I am not sure that that means that it was a showstopper.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): What else was holding up the construction work, the planning application and all the rest? What was holding everything up?

Mr May: Well, there was —

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): The application for judicial review was lodged after the planning application had been successful.

Mr May: The design contract needed to work its way through. Rory will be able to tell you more about the detail of that, I am sure. There was a design phase to be gone through, involving a lot of work with residents and others to secure an acceptable design for the stadium. I recall, for example, that, at one stage, the team tried to see whether it was possible to make the floor of the stadium lower to reduce the height overall, but there is a limit to what could be done because of the water table. A wide range of issues was being addressed during that period, and emergency exiting was not the one holding back progress.

Mr Dunne: With hindsight, was it a mistake not to address it?

Mr May: It will be easier to judge that when we see what it is possible to deliver by way of a stadium. Clearly, if the talk of an 18,000-seat stadium is true, that would suggest that it was a mistake, but it is not my expectation or belief —

Mr Dunne: Eighteen thousand —

Mr May: That was the number that Mr Scott, when he was here, suggested could exit. I am not clear. I only read the transcript. Clearly, in that case, it would look like a mistake, but that was never my expectation for the realistic capacity of the stadium. I accept, however, that I am not the technical expert and we need to be guided by our technical experts, which is not to say that one cannot challenge that function to make sure that it is being exercised effectively and properly.

Mr Dunne: Can you assure us today that you did that?

Mr May: Did what?

Mr Dunne: Challenged effectively.

Mr May: As I said, I tried to be clear what the scenarios were that needed to be met and that those were the sorts of scenarios that would apply elsewhere, and then I tried to ensure that there were means by which the safety technical group was sitting down with the people whom it needed to sit down with to resolve the issue. I am never going to resolve a technical issue, because I am not a technical person.

Mr Dunne: On occasion, you chaired the sponsor board in place of the Minister. Who was responsible for reporting to the sponsor board on safety in the broadest terms, including emergency exiting?

Mr May: There was no separate responsibility. The senior responsible officer was responsible for reporting on progress on all material issues, including safety and exiting, across all three programmes.

Mr Dunne: Who was the senior responsible officer?

Mr May: Cynthia Smith.

Mr Dunne: So it was her responsibility.

Mr May: It was not a specific responsibility; it was an overall responsibility to come to the steering group and report on all the issues relating to the stadia.

Mr Dunne: OK. You mentioned earlier that "we" took a view "collectively" to proceed with planning permission. Who were the "we"?

Mr May: The GAA put forward the planning application because it is its stadium. As funders, the Department and the Minister needed to be comfortable that things were going in the right direction for them to do so. That was who "we" were in that context.

Mr Dunne: It was the GAA.

Mr May: The GAA put forward the planning application, not the Department.

Mr Dunne: Were you satisfied, as the chair of the sponsor board? It is not a very high authority, but you were taking the place of the Minister. In my mind, you are the accounting officer and are accountable for it. You should be aware of that.

Mr May: Yes.

Mr Dunne: What assurance can you give us that you were satisfied at that stage that the plans put forward by the GAA were compliant?

Mr May: As I said, what I knew was that the plans enabled exiting in a normal emergency situation and that the issue that needed to be resolved was the scenarios that needed to be applied to determine how that would work in the event that it was difficult to exit some areas. That was the level of assurance that we had at that time.

Mr Dunne: That assurance was very poor.

Had a judicial review not taken place, how far on would the programme be now?

Mr May: I would like to think that the stadium would be being built, the issues having been resolved.

Mr Dunne: What issues?

Mr May: The outstanding issues. A range of issues needed to be resolved before going live. A set of what are called "conditions precedent" were set in the funding agreement, all of which all needed to be fully closed out before the construction notice could be issued and the funding from the Department could flow to the GAA.

Mr Dunne: Is there not a real risk that the building could have been well under way, with a design capacity of 38,000 but without a proper emergency exit plan in place?

Mr May: One of the —

Mr Dunne: Do you recognise that as a real risk?

Mr May: One of the conditions in the funding agreement was that all statutory issues needed to be met. We needed to have a realistic expectation that we would be able to achieve the certificate in order to proceed.

Mr Dunne: There is a clear difference between the certificate, which, really, is a piece of paper at the end of the process, and having safety built in right from the start. It should have been built into the whole design right from the very start, including the emergency exiting, which, to me, has been left out. You said earlier that perhaps that was not a good way to proceed.

Mr May: It may be helpful if I quote from the instructions to tenderers for the new build for the Ulster Council GAA Casement Park stadium:

It goes on to reference the red and green guides and any other relevant guidelines that needed to be applied. I cannot accept that safety was not incorporated from the start. There was recognition that it was an essential element of the delivery of the programme. It was not being retrofitted at the end.

Mr Dunne: You have admitted here today that the plans were put forward by the GAA and your Department. Obviously, you approved that. I take it that you approved the payment for the planning approval.

Mr May: I am not sure what payment we are talking about. I do not recall specifically —

Mr Dunne: The planning application fee.

Mr May: Right. I am certainly not disputing the fact that we were comfortable with the idea that we would proceed to the planning permission stage. If that involved a fee, yes.

Mr Dunne: So, you approved that, and yet you admit that the plans were put forward by the GAA and your Department had not fully scrutinised them.

Mr May: No, what I said was that the full set of issues had not been resolved.

Mr B McCrea: Does the Department approve designs before they go forward to planning?

Mr Dunne: Not for the GAA.

Mr B McCrea: Does the Department approve designs before they go forward to planning?

Mr May: I would need to refresh my memory of the funding agreement that we entered into with the GAA. I do not believe that a formal approval of the design was required, but I think that Rory Miskelly, who is coming later, will be closer to the precise detail. I do not believe that we had to formally approve the design.

Mr B McCrea: Rosalie Flanagan states in her letter:

What does she mean?

Mr May: I have already said that we agreed that it should go to planning. I am not sure that we formally approved the design. That would imply —

Mr B McCrea: You were the acting permanent secretary. You took over from the permanent secretary. The permanent secretary — I think that you have this letter —

Mr May: Which letter are we talking about?

Mr B McCrea: I am talking about the letter of 8 October 2012. It says "when" — not "if" or "maybe" — "the Department approves".

Mr May: It continues:

Mr B McCrea: Yes. So the Department approves the design to go forward for planning.

Mr May: What we are approving is that it goes forward for planning. I am not sure that we are —

Mr B McCrea: That is OK. Does the Department approve the design to go forward for planning?

Mr May: We certainly approved the application for planning, yes.

Mr B McCrea: So you approved it. Although that was to do with Windsor, it would have been departmental policy to approve the design to go forward for planning. The Department would have approved the Casement Park plans to go forward for planning.

Mr May: Yes, because it is so intricately linked to the funding agreement and so on, we would need to have been comfortable to proceed.

Mr B McCrea: So you would have approved it. Do you agree that it is essential that, when the Department gives such approval, you have confirmation from the SNIOB, the PSNI and Belfast City Council that:

Mr May: We took the view that that needed to be met by the time the stadium was being built.

Mr B McCrea: So, are you demurring from the point of view of this permanent secretary, who is saying that when the Department approves the design, it should have had confirmation that it would do that? Are you saying that that is not correct?

Mr May: I am not saying that. I did not have sight of that letter when I was in post. I did not know that that letter had issued. I absolutely recognise that that is a sensible way to proceed.

Mr B McCrea: When you were in post, did the Department have a policy to seek such assurance? Did the Department seek the assurance that all "reasonably foreseeable safety scenarios" had been considered? Did it seek those comforts before it approved the design to go forward for planning?

Mr May: It is already clear that the Department recognised that there were still safety issues to be resolved. So, in the case of Casement, the answer is clearly that is not the approach that was taken.

Mr B McCrea: That was not the case. We have talked about the emergency evacuation plan, and I think that you said that you were not aware of the extent or the need for an emergency evacuation plan.

Mr May: No, I think that what I said was that I was not aware that there had been a series of requests made in March/April 2013 for such a plan.

Mr B McCrea: We have a set of minutes from a meeting on 18 December 2013 at which the chief executive raises the issue of "different interpretations": were you at that meeting?

Mr May: Yes.

Mr B McCrea: You chaired that meeting.

Mr May: I did.

Mr B McCrea: What is your recollection of what was meant by "different interpretations"?

Mr May: It comes back to the point of being clear that the same standards were being applied to the building of stadia here as would be the case elsewhere under similar guidance that exists.

Mr B McCrea: OK, so that was a matter raised. Did it come back to the board? It was raised as an issue. Did they report to the board?

Mr May: I know that, in subsequent meetings of the steering group, reference was made to the ongoing development of an emergency evacuation plan to meet the GAA's need for a stadium.

Mr B McCrea: Yet, during the time that you were at the meetings or the Minister was at the meetings, you did not think that it was a matter of any seriousness.

Mr May: As I said, we were getting a clear signal that work was ongoing to try to resolve it. I do not recall delving deeply into that specific issue at the next meeting of the steering group.

Mr B McCrea: So, at the next meeting of the steering group, on 13 March 2014, the SRO reports:

Do you remember that discussion?

Mr May: I do not remember the detail of it, no.

Mr B McCrea: It was raised at that —

Mr May: It was constantly being reflected in the SRO reports throughout 2014.

Mr B McCrea: So, the issue was then raised again. On 10 April, the minutes of the meeting state:

That is in the minutes.

Mr May: Yes.

Mr B McCrea: The SRO raised the point that:

Under issues:

This is the third meeting. Is it starting to be an issue yet?

Mr May: Well, as I have highlighted, it was an issue, and it was being taken as a significant issue throughout 2014 and —

Mr B McCrea: No, you said that it was not the red-line issue. You said that there were more pressing issues. Your argument was that it had not really bubbled up. It is a significant issue or not?

Mr May: It was one of a range of issues that was being addressed, as, I think, is clear from the minutes, because the minutes reflect a whole series of different things that has been discussed.

Mr B McCrea: That was on 10 April. So, on 4 June 2014, the minutes state:

The SRO, your deputy, reports:

Under issues, she states:

How long do these meetings take typically?

Mr May: They might take around an hour and a half, perhaps.

Mr B McCrea: We are now in the fourth month in which it has been raised. I move on to the next meeting, which is on 3 September 2014, and you are still in post at this stage —

Mr May: Yes. That is correct.

Mr B McCrea: The minutes state:

The SRO reports:

Under issues

it is raised again, and you still do not think that it is an issue.

Mr May: I have not said that it was not an issue. I said that it was one of a number of issues that were being addressed with a view to resolution. I accept that what you are highlighting, fairly, I think, is that the issues had not been finalised and bottomed out by that stage.

Mr B McCrea: What I am raising is that you or the Minister chaired these meetings.

Mr May: That is correct.

Mr B McCrea: This was raised continuously as a problem. I refer you to the evidence given by Nick Harkness earlier, which I think that you are aware of. He reported that, on 18 March, Antoinette McKeown sent you an email regarding:

She reinforced the point that there was the:

She raised that with you.

Mr May: Indeed, and I think that any normal reading of that email will tell you that, yes, I am flagging this as an issue, but it is not saying that this is the showstopper. So, absolutely, if you read those emails, that is, I think, a fair reflection of where I thought things were.

Mr B McCrea: You were aware that they had a problem. You might not have thought that it was a problem, but they thought that they had a problem. Antoinette was raising this issue—

Mr May: It is not their problem; it is a problem that needed to be resolved for the programme.

Mr B McCrea: So, we also have a note that, on 20 May, Nick Harkness briefed the deputy permanent secretary on emergency exiting concerns.

Mr May: I think that what he said was that he had a word with Cynthia in the margins of a reception in Parliament Buildings. I am not sure that that counts as a briefing, but, yes, I am sure that he mentioned it to her.

Mr B McCrea: So, on 4 June 2014, in preparation for the stadium programme board meeting that day, he raised issues about the change of advice, reduced capacity, widening access and relocating project boards. That information was made available through the chain of command. Did Cynthia Smith ever contact you to say that issues were being raised by Sport NI? Did she ever communicate to you that there were problems?

Mr May: Either Cynthia or the programme team would have reflected the fact that the safety technical group still had issues, yes.

Mr B McCrea: OK. In your opening remarks, you said that you thought that there was not too much of a problem with the Andersonstown Road because you had driven down it and you thought it was quite extensive.

Mr May: I did not say that, Basil. I am afraid that that is a gross misrepresentation of what I said.

Mr B McCrea: I will give you an opportunity to clarify, for my information, what it is that you thought you said.

Mr May: What I said was that I thought it was entirely reasonable to ask questions about the scenarios we were being asked to meet, including the scenario that all of the Andersonstown Road would be unavailable. I also said, very clearly, that this would be a technical issue that needed to be resolved and I am not a technical expert.

Mr B McCrea: I cannot remember exactly what you said, but we will check the record. I had the impression that you thought, having driven down the road, that it was quite a long entrance and it would take quite a lot to close it in its entirety.

Mr May: I am clear that I am a lay person offering those views, and I think I made that clear at the time.

Mr B McCrea: The fundamental issue, however, which was made clear in the outline business case, is that you were trying to shoehorn a 38,000-capacity stadium into an existing site that would have complicating issues. Were you aware of that issue?

Mr May: Everyone is aware that there are challenges on the site, not least in securing community acceptance for the stadium. There were different challenges with each of the stadia.

Mr B McCrea: I am not asking you for the technical brief; that is for others. As the member of the board who chaired the committee from time to time, are you of the opinion now, having heard the evidence that was discussed regularly in your meetings, that it is not a problem and that, in general terms, it will be OK and we will get a 38,000-seater stadium in that place?

Mr May: Things have moved on since we were looking at a 38,000-seater stadium. It is for the GAA to bring forward revised planning proposals. I have no idea what their thinking is about the future.

Mr B McCrea: In your opinion, as the person who was chairing this important committee in the Minister's absence — and I will ask you about the Minister in a moment — looking at it for over a year, with the records there and all the information coming from your advisers in Sport NI and the safety technical group, is there an ongoing issue or can it be resolved?

Mr May: There was an ongoing issue to which we knew we needed to find a resolution one way or another. That would either involve a change in the plans or, if that was not possible, a change in the capacity. It was clear that you would have had to resolve the issue.

Mr B McCrea: What scenario did you consider in reducing the capacity that would do that?

Mr May: We were fixed, in the first instance, on seeing whether it was possible to deliver the original capacity of 38,000 and, if that was not possible, we would have had to look at other scenarios, but we had not got that far.

Mr B McCrea: What discussions did you have with the Minister regarding this important issue?

Mr May: I do not recall having detailed discussions with the Minister about this issue. As I said, she took regular briefings from the team, but I was not present for the majority of those meetings.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Let us just pause there. Who in the team gave those briefings?

Mr May: In the first instance, during 2013, it was Noel Molloy or Ciarán McGurk and thereafter Ciarán or Rory Miskelly.

Mr B McCrea: I will finish here, and maybe the Chairperson will let me come back after others have had their say. It is almost unbelievable that for a stadium construction, which was a flagship project with the biggest capital spend in the history of the Department, recognising that you were trying to put a new stadium in an old space, nobody thought to consider an emergency exit scheme.

Mr May: It is not true that nobody was considering an emergency exit scheme. It is clear that proper emergency exiting needed to be in place in order to secure a safety certificate.

Mr B McCrea: There has been a lot of play about Hillsborough and "Did you mention the word?" and "Did you not mention the word?". Let me tell you that whether the word was mentioned or not, with every person responsible for the design of this stadium in a crowded position, with objections from residents and with judicial reviews that have gone forward, it is inconceivable that you did not consider an emergency exiting scheme as being of paramount importance.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Thank you.

Mr B McCrea: I just want to finish on the point.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Thank you. You have had a good opportunity there, I think. I appreciate the questioning, Basil.

Mr D Bradley: Good afternoon. This is a question that I asked this morning and to which I was not able to get the answer from Sport NI, so I will put it to you. In August 2013, when you were in post, the DCAL observer Carl Southern at the safety technical group withdrew from the meetings. He said that he was very busy and could not attend the meetings even though this was the biggest project that DCAL had on its books and, indeed, the biggest ever sporting stadium project in Northern Ireland. He said that the STG could have autonomy to contact stakeholders directly and that he would require reports as and when required. This morning, I said that this seemed to be a laissez-faire attitude to the safety technical group as this person was the most qualified in the Department on the technical and safety issues. Were you aware that Mr Southern had withdrawn from his role as observer on the STG?

Mr May: I do not recall it particularly. I may have been told, but I cannot be sure. I disagree with the characterisation of laissez-faire. I do not believe that that was the approach that was taken. I think that Nick Harkness in his further evidence drew out the reasons why that is not the case because he outlined the four or five meetings that took place in September and October at which Carl Southern and the safety technical group were both present. I suspect — and Carl will be able to answer for himself — that he was more interested in the product from the safety technical group than he was in sitting through the considerations that got it to the product and that he felt that his time would be better served doing some of the other duties that he had. I suspect that that is what it was, but you would have to ask him.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): We will get the chance to ask Carl Southern.

Mr D Bradley: That is fair enough. On reflection, there are two themes that I have picked up around here. One of them is that this has all been blown out of proportion and that the safety issues would have been picked up further down the trail and dealt with, finally, if not within the project group, by Belfast City Council. That is one theme. The other is that there were failings that should have been addressed and which, had they not been identified, could have led to major consequences. Which one of those two views do you think reflects the situation?

Mr May: Obviously, a project assessment review is being carried out by the Department.

Mr D Bradley: No, on reflection, in your experience.

Mr May: I will answer, but I will give a bit of context before I do, if that is OK. One of the key considerations in that is whether we were wise to proceed to go for planning permission without having finalised out the emergency exiting issue. I will be interested to see what the review finds on that because it may well be that, on reflection, that is something we should have done differently. That is kind of where I am.

On the first point, I would not describe it being blown out of proportion, but I think that, as I said at the beginning, if one looks at only one issue in the context of a big programme with many issues, it is possible to lose where that sits against everything else that is going on at any given point in time. It is obviously an important issue and one that needed to be addressed and resolved. I am confident that we would have addressed it and resolved it. We would not have built the wrong stadium for the capacity. However, I am not in any sense saying that everything we did was perfect. Very rarely, if ever, have I been involved in a programme where that has been the case, and been demonstrated to be so afterwards.

Mr D Bradley: So you tend to the view that there were issues that should have been identified.

Mr May: I am sure that there were things that we could have done differently and better.

Mr Cree: Good afternoon, Peter.

Mr May: Hi. How are you?

Mr Cree: It feels like evening already, does it not?

Mr May: I am conscious that you have more people to see yet, so it may well feel like that to you.

Mr Cree: Safety was clearly an issue here from the start. You could pick it up all the way along. It had been identified and it needed to be addressed. The difficulty is that Rory Miskelly suggested and is on record as arguing that this issue could be dealt with during and after construction.

Mr May: I do not think so. If you are going to change the design, you cannot do it after construction, to be clear.

Mr Cree: That is right. It leaves a very narrow window, does it not? It is clear that everyone wanted to push on with this, and capacity looks like it was a main driver.

Mr May: There was a capacity that we were trying to work to, yes, absolutely.

Mr Cree: Could it be that, somewhere down the line, some people who were involved recognised that there was a tension between capacity and safety and chose to leave safety alone? Would that be unfair?

Mr May: That would be unfair, yes. You would not build a stadium that was not safe.

Mr Cree: Right. On 25 July 2014, Sport Northern Ireland got a note from Ciarán McGurk.

Mr May: Sorry, do you have a reference for that in the pack?

Mr Cree: Yes, it is at table 20.

Mr May: Thank you. Which letter are we talking about?

Mr Cree: It is dated 25 July. It is at page 24 in our pack.

Mr May: I do not have that. Thanks. OK. It is a telephone call.

Mr Cree: Do you see the first bullet point? "Advises" — which surprised me when I read it at first —

— this is in July 2014 —

So the plan was to be provided by the GAA.

Mr May: Yes. It is their stadium.

Mr Cree: It is their team. Do you feel that that was merely leaving the buck with the GAA, bearing in mind that the run-off was to get the planning application in?

Mr May: Planning would have been through by that point. We were into the judicial review, I think, by July 2014. A lot of the emergency exiting plan is actually about how you manage and run the stadium, once you have built it. The GAA did not have a stadium director in post by that point, but clearly it was responsible for bringing forward the plans as to how it would work. It is not simply about bricks and mortar; it is also about the mechanisms that you have to exit people. I am not an expert, and I do not want to pretend to sound like one, but I know that there is more to it than that. So it is absolutely right that it should not be for the Department to produce an emergency exiting plan. We were not going to be running the stadium; the GAA would be running it. That is not passing the buck, that is making sure that the plan is owned by the people who run the stadium. That is absolutely right. Our clarity was that the money, which is our bit, was not going to flow until such time as we had satisfaction around all of it. I think that, in some ways, that is showing that the team were recognising the need for the plan to come forward.

Mr Cree: Yes, but it could also be construed that the Department was — Dominic used the term — laissez-faire about it. It was clearly not driving this issue.

Mr May: I would say that, in respect of all three stadia, the Department played a strong proactive role in trying to deliver the Programme for Government commitments, to try to make sure that these stadia happened in a way that was appropriate, good, safe and all the rest of it for the good of Northern Ireland. So I am very confident and very sure about that.

Mr Cree: You said that there were several issues that needed resolution. When it came to the end of the line, we know that exiting was one of the things that had not been resolved.

Mr May: Yes.

Mr Cree: Were all the other issues resolved at that point?

Mr May: Which point are we talking about?

Mr Cree: At the end of the line. When you were going for a planning application and when the budget was finalised.

Mr May: No. As I said, a whole series of conditions were present in the funding agreement and needed to be resolved. I do not have the list to read them out. There was an issue that got into the press, which was also critical around the social club and how that was going to work in Casement. That was only resolved in, I think, late summer 2014. There were a whole series of different things that still needed to be resolved.

Mr Cree: I guess that the psyche must have been, "We can resolve these things afterwards". Is that right?

Mr May: Resolve them after planning, yes.

Mr Cree: With the benefit of hindsight, that was perhaps a major mistake. If you have developed a stadium that is designed to hold 38,000 people — it is interesting that the Minister is still pushing for 30,000 — and safety says, "I am sorry. You cannot have more than 21,000", then there has been a lot of wasted effort. You should clear those issues early on.

Mr May: I answered that in response to Dominic Bradley. As I said, I would be interested to see what the project assessment review says. You have to remember that Ravenhill went through the process of having planning approval before the STG was constituted. That said, safety advice would have been offered on Ravenhill during that period. I understand that that is a key point and one that, given my level of professional knowledge, I am not really in a position to reach a judgement on. What the project assessment review, which has people who are experts at delivering projects of this nature, has to say on that would be of relevance.

Mr Cree: This is my final question, Peter. You said that no one told you the importance of the exiting plan.

Mr May: I did not say that. I said that nobody told me that there had been a number of requests for the exiting plan in March and April 2013. Perhaps at the end of 2013 or beginning of 2014, I was being told that emergency exiting was an issue. It would not have been flagged up in my early time in DCAL when I was trying to come to terms with it. The programme was in a different place then, to be fair. I referenced some of the challenges we were facing in relation to state aid and the court case that Crusaders was bringing and so on. That was absorbing a lot of time. Some of the more technical issues would not have necessarily been brought to my attention given my non-technical background.

Mr Cree: Do you not think that that was negligent of them?

Mr May: I do not think that it was negligent at the time because, as I said, people were trying to resolve the issue. It became clear that it had not been resolved. Basil has rehearsed what happened at the various steering group meetings from December 2013 onwards. It was being flagged as an issue at the top table, as it were, and I think that that is entirely appropriate.

Mrs McKevitt: Thanks very much, Peter, for coming this afternoon to the inquiry. Page 195 of our pack states that the Casement Park safety technical group commented on a proposal submitted and, although there were some deviations from the red guide, considered that the content of it was appropriate for entrance, circulation and exiting under normal conditions. During questioning from other members, it talked about the report not coming up on an emergency exit strategy.

Mr May: Plan, yes.

Mrs McKevitt: Was that plan for unique exiting or was it for all exiting? The STG was happy with exiting under normal conditions.

Mr May: I am sure you would need an emergency exit plan to cover all circumstances, because you need to cover all emergencies. The fact that the stadium is technically able to have 38,000 people leave within eight minutes is not enough without there being a plan as to how that will be made to happen. That is the point.

Mrs McKevitt: Thank you for that clarification. Page 197 is to do with the email that was sent by Antoinette. It talks about "issues affecting safety at Casement Park", the advice on issues that the Department was given and states that it was not introduced more recently. I am sure it was raised before that. That was dated March 2014. Could you give us more insight into what you thought that email was about, given that the seriousness of the issue around the health and safety was highlighted here only quite recently?

Mr May: I agreed with a large part of what I heard Nick Harkness say in relation to different aspects, but I do not agree that this is elevating the issue, nor do I agree with the weight he placed on it. The tone and nature of the email is business as usual; it is a process suggestion for how the safety technical group could be engaged in the work of the programme, which we responded to sensibly and appropriately.

As I said, Sport NI were on the steering group and could have said that they did not think we should have proceeded to seek planning permission, if that had been their view, at the relevant point of the conversation, and they did not do so. I am not saying that they did not raise issues. It is clear from all the conversations we have had that there was an ongoing issue that various efforts were being made to resolve. However, that was not being elevated in quite the way that was described earlier.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): You will have seen the list of all the exchanges, which was produced by Sport NI. If you had seen all those emails and reports and exchanges, would they not have flagged up to you the fact that there was a very serious issue? Who hid those from you?

Mr May: I am sorry.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): If you had seen all those emails and exchanges, you would have been, I assume, aware of the seriousness of the issue. So, I am asking who hid them from you. If somebody at some level in the organisation had all the correspondence, it would be right and proper for them to pass it up.

Mr May: I do not think that they were hidden from me. As I said, I would have got a series of briefings from the team in which, at various times, they would have mentioned those issues, particularly towards the end of 2013.

It seems to me that it is normal in any programme that, as issues arise, the team seeks to resolve them. It is as those issues become more difficult to resolve that they become elevated and draw in more senior people to see if more, or something different, needs to be done. I would not characterise this as having been hidden from me.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): You never saw them.

Mr May: No, but "hidden" implies that there was a deliberate act.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Are you saying then that there was a failure on the part of those staff to recognise the significance of this?

Mr May: They brought it to me at the time they thought it was of such significance that it needed my attention.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Many of us would say that that was a bit late.

There was another point about build capacity being greater than safety capacity.

Mr May: Where are you referring to?

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): It is not in the documents, it is just a comment that was made that you could end up in a scenario where you had a build capacity greater than a safety capacity. Was that possibility ever recorded on the departmental risk register?

Mr May: I do not have that information in front of me, and I do not have the records. I do not recall it having been put in those terms, but I would need to check it.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): It certainly was a risk. Would you agree?

Mr May: As I said, it was something that needed to be resolved before we got to that stage.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): There was not going to be much chance to do that if Rory Miskelly was here on 11 December telling us that construction work would be starting in January. Were these issues ever raised at the departmental business meeting?

Mr May: Which meeting are you referring to?

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Sorry, I mean the departmental business meeting that takes place in the Department on a regular basis where the permanent secretary meets all the senior officials.

Mr May: If you mean the Monday morning meeting that we would have had, then during my early time it was not normal for the stadium director to come to those meetings. I would have picked up his issues separately. It was only towards the end of my time that the programme director started to attend, and then he would have given the flavour of any issues, focusing very much on what happened the week before or what was expected to happen in the week ahead. They were quite tactical meetings.

Ms McCorley: Rosalie Flanagan was the permanent secretary. In her time, was she the senior responsible officer, or was it Cynthia Smith?

Mr May: I think she was the senior responsible officer. When I was appointed, it was expected that I would only be there for a few weeks, or a couple of months at most, and we agreed that it made more sense, for the purpose of continuity, for Cynthia to assume the role of senior responsible officer, rather than for it to jump to me and then jump to someone else fairly quickly thereafter. It did not make a significant difference. I remained closely involved in the work of the programme and, as accounting officer, had various responsibilities that were still mine alone to exercise.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Were you aware at that stage in the process that consideration was being given to the possibility of taking strips off people's gardens and potentially buying their houses?

Mr May: I knew that there was a series of options being considered and that the GAA had not reached a view on the preferred option.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Does that not flag up — red flags, any colour of flags — that something is serious about this? They are talking about removing a portion from the garden of everybody who lives adjacent to Casement Park and buying two, three, four, five, six houses to knock them down for access. Does that not say that this is a serious issue and a potential disaster?

Mr May: It was one of a number of options that was being developed. Yes, it indicates the seriousness with which we were seeking to ensure that we could meet the safety requirements for emergency exiting.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): It is not the seriousness with which you are treating it. Does it not indicate the seriousness of the issue itself?

Mr May: Yes, absolutely.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): You recognise, then, that there was evidence before you that it was a very serious issue, but there were no red flags, even though you knew that people would be asked to sell off strips of their gardens or lose their houses. Does it not suggest —

Mr May: Safety ultimately becomes a critical issue. What I was saying was that it had not yet got to the point where it was going to prevent the programme; but we needed to resolve it, and resolve it in a period of time. It was quite late on in my time that the options were being developed. I certainly had visibility of some of the options that were being looked at.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Dominic Bradley used the term, "laissez-faire". Some of us might well say that it looks as though the top level in the Department was asleep at the wheel.

Mr May: I disagree. You would expect me to say that.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): I would expect you to disagree, but I think it is a conclusion that many people looking at this will come to. Thanks very much, indeed. We have two more members, Oliver and Basil, and then we will move on. Single points, please.

Mr McMullan: Are you happy that there was a coordinated approach by everybody to this application?

Mr May: To the planning application?

Mr McMullan: Yes.

Mr May: I am happy, as I outlined, that we, the GAA and others were coordinated in bringing the planning application forward. The steps we took were fully visible.

Mr McMullan: I looked through the notes there, and I do not see any mention of it, but you are responsible for the budget.

Mr May: Yes, most of the budget. Some of the budget is coming from the GAA. Most of it is from the Department.

Mr McMullan: Your budget, not the GAA's. Put them to one side. We can always come back to them. I cannot see in any of these papers — I stand to be corrected — that there was, when you put your planning application in, an element of doubt concerning your exiting strategy and that there would be extra costs.

Mr May: We had a cost envelope that we were working to.

Mr McMullan: How could you work to a cost envelope if you did not know what was going to be there? Were you estimating?

Mr May: There is a contingency set aside in projects of this nature to cover things that were not anticipated. That might be one of those.

Mr McMullan: Contingency plans include money set aside to cover the whole thing, from the smallest thing to the biggest thing, but that is different from what we are talking about here. We are talking about the exit plan that was to be part of the building after planning. How, then, can you estimate for the complete job? You have your contingency money set aside. [Inaudible.]

Was there no fear of the budget at all?

Mr May: The budget was just one of the things that were being managed. We were absolutely looking to bring it in within the envelope that the Executive had set us. We had not got to the stage where we believed that we were going to have a difficulty with that.

Mr McMullan: Would you have had a difficulty with that if you were using the green book?

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): We are having enough trouble with the red book. Keep the green book out of it, please.

Mr May: That is taking me into territory — I do not know that the difference between the green book and the red book was material to the cost of the build. I do not know that it was; I am just not expert enough to tell you.

Mr McMullan: I ask because Mr Scott himself flagged up the issue. We have the two books, but you are telling me that we only use the red book.

Mr May: That is my understanding. The red book is the one that applies in Northern Ireland; it is very similar to the green book.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Sorry, can I just say —

Mr McMullan: Can I just get this clear in my head?

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Yes, but just to get it clear for the record, I think that Mr Scott was making it clear that the red book, which is the one with the DCAL imprimatur on it, is the Department's one; it is published on the DCAL website. The Northern Ireland one is a revision of the green book in GB, so we are here in Northern Ireland, in this part of the United Kingdom, and, therefore, it is the red book that we refer to.

Mr McMullan: So we never, at any time, went to the green book. It is very important.

Mr May: My understanding is that the red book is what was used.

Mr McMullan: Your understanding — you do not know. Are you telling me now that you do not know which book was used?

Mr May: I am telling you what my understanding is.

Mr McMullan: You do not know which book.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): We can expect our permanent secretary to know an awful lot of things, but there are probably some things that even a permanent secretary does not know.

Mr May: As I said, my understanding is that it is the red book that applies here and it is the red book that was used. I cannot be clearer than that.

Mr B McCrea: You said that you listened to what Mr Harkness had to say earlier and that you agreed with a fair amount of it.

Mr May: Yes.

Mr B McCrea: If I stated that Mr Harkness seemed to be worried about the lack of an emergency exit plan and thought that there were significant concerns, would that be a fair reflection of Mr Harkness's proposals?

Mr May: Yes.

Mr B McCrea: Were you surprised that such concerns from Sport NI and the STG did not make it to higher levels of the project management?

Mr May: I would have expected more to have been made of it at the steering group, given what Mr Harkness said today.

Mr B McCrea: OK; I think that that is important. I think that more should have been done to make people aware, because there is a significant body of evidence. Can you offer any observations as to why that information might not have got to the project boards?

Mr May: I was talking about the steering group, because that is the group that I sit on. I can only surmise; I do not know the answer to that question.

Mr B McCrea: But you did seem to say to me that the chief executive of Sport NI was on the board.

Mr May: On the steering group, yes.

Mr B McCrea: On the steering group, and, had she any concerns, she would have brought them to the attention —

Mr May: Yes, if they had been elevated in the normal way, I would have expected Antoinette to have raised them. Certainly, in relation to other issues, not necessarily relating to the stadia, she would have raised issues with me when they had been elevated to her through Sport NI.

Mr B McCrea: Given that we have agreed, at least tentatively, that Sport NI had significant concerns at a lower level, the failure to communicate may well have been at the chief executive/board interface.

Mr May: I not know whether the information got to the chief executive, and I do not know what the chief executive then decided to do with that information, so that is the area of surmising.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): There will be people coming in, on a future occasion, where there is a level above that where you move into the world of DCAL. There are issues about the various steps in the process, which we will come back to.

Mr B McCrea: There is a point that I wanted to establish, without being too harsh because I understand that people do not know certain things. I would like to reiterate that, had the concerns that were highlighted by Mr Harkness and others reached the board's attention, the board would have taken those concerns seriously.

Mr May: Absolutely. If there was a suggestion that the stadium could only accommodate 18,000 people, as Mr Scott said when he was here, that would have been a fundamentally different proposition from the one that we were all working to.

Mr B McCrea: So at no time was that brought to your attention and at no time that you are aware of, therefore, was it brought to the Minister's attention.

Mr May: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Carl Southern was a member of staff in DCAL.

Mr May: Yes.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): From this correspondence, is it not fairly clear that he and others at that level of the structure were aware that you might end up with only 18,000? Did they not elevate it to the right level at the top of DCAL?

Mr May: Well, as I have been clear, they elevated the fact that there was a concern about emergency exiting. None of us felt that we had got to the bottom of what that would mean. I was certainly not told about a figure of 16,000 or 18,000.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): So it is possible that the failure was at the interface between Sport NI and DCAL or that it actually permeated DCAL but stopped at a particular level and was never filtered up.

Mr May: The fact of an issue was filtered up. It may be that the scale —

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): The key point is that clearly people were aware of the substance but not the significance of the issue. They knew it was an issue about egress, but we are told that, at the top level, people were not aware of the scale of it.

There was a letter sent to us making reference to the judicial review. It refers to the DCAL affidavit, which was sworn by you as the then permanent secretary on 20 May 2014. Do you still have a copy of that affidavit?

Mr May: No I do not, but I can get one from DCAL.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): It would be helpful, but we will ask too. We will get Peter to write to DCAL and ask for that, because clearly there is some significance to that. When we have seen it we might need to ask a question or two about it, but we will do that in due course.

Mr May: OK.

The Chairperson (Mr McCausland): Thank you very much indeed.