Mr. Conor O'Kelly:

The NTMA is not involved in any of the transport PPPs. Those are handled by the National Transport Authority. We just deal with accommodation PPPs. I will give an example in that regard. The Grangegorman campus of Technological University Dublin was the largest PPP taken on in the history of the State. It was taken to the Supreme Court for two years and challenged by one of the underbidders. It was hit by the pandemic. This month, 10,000 students will arrive on campus to fine infrastructure that has been delivered almost exactly on budget since the financial close five years ago, despite all of the cycles and what has happened, with just some small adjustments for inflation. Compared with infrastructure that the State procures directly, it stands up extremely well. Building infrastructure is tough. We have many plans to build infrastructure. Building it directly is difficult and finding ways to do it in general is difficulty. PPP contracts, when managed properly, can be good mechanisms to keep costs in check for the taxpayer.