Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I thank our witnesses for a very interesting discussion. My starting point is to be deeply sceptical of PPPs. The comparison I would like to see, although I do not think it is on the agenda, but the witnesses can tell me if there has been any discussion about it, is, as well as comparing direct procurement, which, as the witnesses pointed out earlier, is paying a contractor to do something for the State, is what if the State did the work directly itself with its own construction capacity. That would obviously require developing such construction capacity, which we do not have that at the moment. It seems logical to me that if you do not have the profit element, it is ultimately going to be cheaper and we potentially get economies of scale if we have our own large construction capacity. There would be less replication of resources. Will the witnesses comment on that point? Has there been any discussion at all or examination of having our own construction capacity and how it might compare with these other models?