Mr. Robert Watt:

There are two issues. When we account for it in cash terms, the appropriation account of the Department will show the unitary payment over the 25-year period of the school. When it comes to comparing the projects for accounting purposes in the short run, the Secretary General, Mr. Ó Foghlú's Department of Education and Skills, has an envelope for the next number of years for a given amount. If the Department decides to undertake a PPP project instead of a traditionally procured project, the capital cost of that will be set against the Department's capital envelope as if it had been procured traditionally, even if it goes down the route of PPP. In effect, the Department of Education and Skills will not be able to spend that money again if it decides to go down the PPP route because it will take up some of the envelope set out for it. In effect, there is a difference between the cash accounting, which is the unitary payment for PPP, and the notional accounting when it comes to our rules about how envelopes are managed when it comes to these projects.