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

Yes and PPPs involve what are called bullet payments, where one pays, over a longer time period, a bullet payment per annum to cover both the costs and maintenance of the project. Maintenance is an issue that does not get enough consideration. Those bullet payments can be very considerable, not just in the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport but also in the Departments of Education and Skills and Health. In the former, they can amount to tens of millions of euro per year. My recollection is that across the coming years and across all of the PPPs that we have delivered, the accumulated value of the bullet payments is between €3 billion and €4 billion. Those payments are spread over a longer time period which is why PPPs are attractive but, as I said earlier, we need to be really careful with them. Just because a liability does not sit directly on the sovereign balance sheet does not mean the liability does not exist. It needs to be met out of current expenditure in the future and that is why care is needed with this approach. The review we are undertaking of the capital plan includes a module on this matter.