Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Perhaps the real question relates to whether we are still achieving the 23%. I am concerned with regard to what happens when PPPs are put in place in other jurisdictions. For example, the previous Labour Government in the United Kingdom put in place a large number of private finance initiatives. The benefit of this for many countries is that they can build a great many things but the cost does not appear on the national balance sheet. Some of the companies that were involved in delivering projects of this nature obtained much larger profits than was anticipated. In other instances, the loss to the taxpayer was a great deal higher than originally envisaged. What happens is that once the relevant item of infrastructure has been built, the operational aspects relating to the contract kick in and this can give rise to unforeseen consequences. This is why I am zoning in on the point with regard to what we can do to make the value-for-money appraisal continue to operate across the entire lifecycle of a project as opposed to just applying in respect of the capital investment stage.