Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 16 January 2014

Public Accounts Committee

2012 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 39 - Health Service Executive
Annual Report and Financial Statements 2012
Section 38 - Agencies Remuneration

2:40 pm

Mr. James Menton:

I will make an effort to respond to that query. Pianora is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the group. It was established - before my appointment, but that is neither here nor there - as a special purpose vehicle to construct the car park on the site of the public hospital. I gather that the car park was constructed in 2001 in accordance with the Department of Health's policy guidelines, or policy generally. It wanted to ring-fence the construction of car parks from the development of other medical facilities. The car park was financed by a term loan of over €20 million from Ulster Bank and by grant aid of approximately €4 million from the Department of Health. It is under the management and control of the unified board. Obviously, it pays its expenses from the receipts that come from people using the car park, which is managed on an outsourced basis by a firm called Q-Park. The receipts that come to us are used to discharge the operating expenses, the interest on the loan and the repayment of the principal.

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