Mr. John McCarthy:

The Deputy referred to projects that might have taken three to six years from gestation to completion. Inevitably, there have been projects of this type. What happened in the crash and in the years immediately afterwards was that many projects in the system ground to a halt. It was quite a few years before they came back. The Deputy rightly pointed to the importance of things not bouncing backwards and forwards between the Custom House and local authorities. He and other representatives rightly find this frustrating. I find it frustrating and I know my colleagues here find it frustrating. This is why we and the sector sat down to agree timeframes for the completion of the four-stage approval process so we could all be held to account for what we are doing.

To go back to the Deputy's first question which, if I have interpreted it correctly, is on why we have the four-stage approval given what happens with private development, the real issue is it is because they are public funds, for which I am here to be accountable. To protect public funds, the public spending code applies to public programmes to try to ensure we get best value for money.

When we speak about second guessing, I would like to think the second guessing that might arise would be where a proposal might come forward in which the cost is beyond what we would expect it to be. This is where value engineering comes in, to see whether we could redesign the scheme in some way that would get us a better value for money outcome. From a cost control point of view, this is the real value of the four-stage approval process. As we go from preliminary design to post planning we can see whether the detailed design or planning approval added costs. We have opportunities at stages along the way to see whether we can do something to address additional costs that may arise. Its prime purposes are cost control, the protection of public funds and achieving value for money. Colleagues from the local authorities experience it from the other side. I am quite happy to-----