Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I will return to Mr. O'Neill when he finds the figures. I will turn to the issue of public private partnerships and the Limerick tunnel. Given the issues related to climate change and the desire for a modal shift in transport, including a reduction in the number of car journeys and so forth, I presume in hindsight Mr. Nolan would consider it a bad idea to include in contracts a requirement to reach a certain number of journeys because, beyond paying the operator when the numbers fall short of the target, this type of approach has other costs. For example, the committee was told a couple of months ago that Ireland faces fines of approximately €600 million per annum for missing our climate targets. Some of this money could be spent on making sure our roads are maintained in good condition. There is a circle to be squared here. I presume TII would not design a public private partnership using the model applied to the Limerick tunnel again. Is that a fair assumption?