Mr. Ed Hearne:

In principle, better information about the performance of capital programmes and projects can certainly be incorporated here. One of the differences is that we have much greater scrutiny of capital projects and a more established system of appraisal before projects are committed to. There is a wealth of information about the requirements for appraisal, the public spending code and arrangements for scrutiny of major projects. We can probably do more to incorporate that. Something we have looked at as part of green budgeting is to do moreex anteappraisals of projects and in the climate area, much of the expenditure is capital so we will automatically be bringing in more of a crossover with the reporting under the national development plan. That is something that can be looked at.

I make the point that the actual performance on overruns - the average level of overruns - is often overstated. We have seen a couple of high profile examples of major complex bespoke projects that have gone over but, on average, we have gotten much better at this in this country and typically major programmes in a number of sectors come in on time and on budget. In particular, there was some very good analysis done by Transport Infrastructure Ireland some years ago to show the level of success in major roads infrastructure. Similarly, as we have developed the level of commercial capacity, and professionalism in other agencies - for example, Irish Water - we have seen, on average, a much greater level of performance there as well.

As we roll out the tagging project, which Ms O'Loughlin has mentioned, and as we see more of an overlap between what is in the national development plan and what is counted as green budgeting, that will definitely provide more insight. Certainly we can provide more granular reporting on that at a major project level as part of this report.