Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

For many years, we have had a different world view in relation to project budgeting with the OPW. It is something that has been fought out here at committees before. It actually relates to the way in which resources are provided for public bodies. We would consider that if one starts a project that has, let us say, a two or three year profile, one needs to know what one will spend over the three years. OPW does its budgeting annually on the basis of the Estimates that are available and, therefore, each year a decision is made - this is how much money we have, this is where we will spend it. We are talking about two different things. One is a kind of funding approach and the other is a project budgeting approach. When I make a recommendation in relation to a project budget, I am talking about looking forward over the full life of the project, figuring out how much it will cost, where one will spend the money and then asking, "When will we be able to fund it out of our available resources?" We have ended up on occasion talking at cross purposes with one another because we have these two concepts of what budgeting means. I am sorry if that is very technical but it does lead us to a situation where statements may be misinterpreted.