Ms Angela Denning:

We have a mandate to provide suitable court accommodation. The only mechanism available for several years to provide that accommodation has been the PPP mechanism because of the funding position. In July 2012 the Government announced a €2.25 billion infrastructure stimulus programme, of which the seven courthouse PPP bundle was part. The Criminal Courts of Justice building will be ten years old this weekend. It was built as part of a PPP. From our perspective, we do not have maintenance issues with PPP buildings. When we take ownership of the buildings in 25 years’ time, they will be as new because of a preventive maintenance programme. That has been proved to date. The Criminal Courts of Justice building is ten years old and it looks exactly the same as it did on the day we moved into it. All of the costs are included in the unitary charge, which is a significant bonus for us as it meant that we do not have to employ maintenance staff, go to tender in carrying out repair works and so forth. That is why PPPs were used in building those courthouses, but we are not wedded to the idea of having PPPs. Whatever central government policy is at the time, we will go with it.