Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I note there is a very big increase in the 2016 accounts in the payment for the PPP for maintenance of the motorway and protecting the infrastructure over the previous year. Maybe it was because the M17 or M18 was coming on track. Mr. Nolan said funding from the Exchequer is very tight and TII does not have enough money to maintain the motorways at the level it would like to; that it could do with double the €30 million it gets. One often gets the impression that the level of maintenance is higher on the parts of the motorway network that are built under PPP. Do they have the same restrictions, did they get their costs right or is TII obliged, because of legal contractual arrangements, to pay the private operator for a top-quality maintenance of the road surface in a PPP project and if there is a shortfall, it affects the ones not covered by a PPP? Can Mr. Nolan comment on that observation? I do not know whether it is right or wrong.