Mr. Eoin Dorgan:

Housing leasing is not a public private partnership. That approach is a policy decision the Department of housing is best placed to speak to. On the earlier point, looking back ten years, what we were faced with at that point was a severely fiscally constrained Government. The Government had to make decisions with numerous priorities in terms of where it put its money.

On the points about climate and toll roads, those were very early versions of PPPs that were very much built around a concession approach, which is not the norm any more.

The wider point about climate is very well made. The advantage of PPPs is that we can stitch in the final specifications a building, if it is a PPP project, should be delivered back to us. Obviously, with the very ambitious climate targets we have, it allows us to set out what the required specifications of the building will be in 25 years, which drives an obligation on the PPPs to make the required investments. The built environment is where we are best positioned to meet the targets. That is because of the very clear regulation we have for all new builds, which is reflected in the cost of new houses and buildings. We are internalising the climate cost in those buildings and it is allowing us to better meet those very ambitious objectives. There are other areas, and it is not really the built environment, where we have to a lot more to meet our climate targets. It is looking at the entirety. The PPPs allow us to set out what we want from them in terms of meeting climate objectives for 25 years, which is a benefit because we are internalising the positive climate outcomes we want on day one at construction point as opposed to, and this is where we have to weigh it up against traditional procurement, just trying to get what we can built and then having to source the funding to retrofit it in ten years' time or whatever. It is where it does make it challenging and that is where, given Mr. Meaney mentioned value for money and the public sector benchmark, it is having to make that determination between the two.