It was an audacious project, for which the first stage would cost nearly £5m for a government whose annual budget was £25m. It would produce more electricity than the whole of Ireland was then producing. Distributing the electricity would require a country-wide grid that did not then exist. W. T. Cosgrave, President of the Executive Council ("Prime Minister"), proved harder to convince. He rejected the idea at the first meeting but did agree to meet McLaughlin again. At the second meeting McLaughlin was accompanied by a senior director of Siemens. They were given permission to develop the project and by September 1924 McLaughlin had produced a report "The Electrification of the Irish Free State: The Shannon Scheme Developed by Siemens-Schuckert". The company had shown their faith in him by agreeing to face all costs if it was refused. If approved, it would be the biggest export order ever achieved by a German company.