John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Mr. Watt and his officials. It would appear, as most members have already left the meeting, that they are doing a great job. I would like later to ask Mr. Watt about what he characterised in his opening statement as significant gains in productivity across the system based on the Haddington Road agreement and its previous enabler, the Croke Park agreement.

First, I would like to discuss with Mr. Watt what I regard as the largest potential public-private partnership in this country for many years, possibly the biggest ever, namely, the Strategic Investment Fund. While it was not mentioned in Mr. Watt's opening statement, I understand the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform may be taking the lead in this regard, with the involvement of the NTMA and the Department of Finance. As I understand it, this is a €6.8 billion fund, previously the National Pensions Reserve Fund, which has been turned into an investment fund and is seeking commercial investments from the private sector. It is hoped that this €6.8 billion will be matched by a further €6 billion or €7 billion of private money. It is proposed - this process may already have started - that private equity funds in Dublin and London will seek commercial investments. That is fair enough.

I am interested in hearing whether any thought has been given to where this money will be spent, or if this process will be random in terms of the commercial investments arising. Has any consideration been given to investment in parts of this country that are stagnating? If, for argument's sake, there is some truth to the idea that there is a slight recovery in Dublin and not in other parts of the country, given that this is potentially the largest stimulus fund this country has ever seen and will see for years, has consideration been given to diverting some of this money, as a critical policy measure, towards those parts of the country that are stagnating and in some cases regressing when it comes to unemployment? Given the amount of money involved, has any consideration been given to that possibility?

Mr. Watt referred in his opening statement to past public private partnerships, PPPs. Many of them were strategic projects targeted around the country for various infrastructural reasons. At that time there was a different mindset and thought process involved in terms of the targeting of the billions involved to different parts of the country. I have a suspicion that the €6.8 billion in this case and the money that may come in by way of private sector investments will not be targeted country-wide. Perhaps Mr. Watt would respond.