Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Of the list of 78 primary care centres, 14 are PPPs. It caught my eye for the simple reason that I understood that PPPs were used when there was a risk associated with a building or the running of a particular project. I do not understand what risk is involved in building a health centre, unless we are saying that people will stop getting sick, will not need public health nurses anymore, that schoolchildren will not need to attend the dental clinic in the primary care centre, or that elderly people will not need to have their bloods checked. Could we write to the HSE to ask it to outline what risks it identified such that it used PPPs to build health centres?

According to some research I did, the 14 PPPs involved cost in the region of €115 million, but I do not know if that included the cost of the sites. Can we write and ask that question? I would also like to find out the duration of the contracts and an estimation of their final cost. In particular, I would like the HSE to explain why it felt there was a risk involved.