Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 22 March 2018

Public Accounts Committee

2016 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 4 - Overview of Public Private Partnerships

9:00 am

Mr. Robert Watt:

No, I do not think there has been. What we said is that during the crisis PPPs were there. They achieved value for money but they were there also, in terms of additionality, because we were not in a position to fund all of the capital needs that we wanted to with funds from the Exchequer, in the normal way, because of the large deficit that we had. There was merit in terms of looking at PPPs as a stimulus, and that was the policy. That was set out. Now that we are in different times we can fund more of our needs through the Exchequer through the traditional way. There is not the same requirement for additionality from PPPs as an additional source of finance. Within the accounting treatment that I mentioned, we have changed the rules where, in the past, it was set at 10% of the overall capital programme. Now we are saying that the capital cost of PPPs should be charged against the accounts in the same way as traditional. We are not resiling from PPPs. It has a role to play. Certainly, its role is different now given the changed circumstances in which we find ourselves.

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