Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

I would add the point that I am not aware of any review having been carried out of a PPP; I could be wrong about that but I have not seen one. A point we have been making since we first looked at PPPs is that it is very important to carry out that exercise. As to the timing of it, the first one we looked at was the pilot project on schools in 2003 and the expectation was that after a period of operation of approximately five years there would be a look-back at the value that had been achieved, but I am not aware that has been done. I said in my opening remarks that I will return to these points for next year week's meeting. There is a value to be gained from having a look-back on a project when it becomes operational. There are potential lessons to be learned at that point around what is in the design of the capital infrastructure put in place that might be valuable for projects that are procured traditionally. One can take the benefit of some of the design element because often a decision can be made around investment in capital that would save on running costs. If there are such lessons to be learned, one wants to pick up on them very quickly and incorporate them into traditional or conventional direct procurement. Over the longer period, one can get a view in this respect. Specifically, as in the case of the point we made about road projects, the assumption around demand for the project did not materialise. There may be lessons one wants to learn from that about how one would design the next project. One can only do that if one has a look-back review.