Joanna Byrne (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I will probably be a little different from some of my colleagues who have already contributed. I want to discuss the collapse of the public-private partnerships, PPPs. We all know of a bundle of PPPs, involving almost 500 social homes in Dublin city, Wicklow, Kildare and Sligo, was opened for tender two years ago. I think it was around nine months ago that the preferred bidder was notified and started to prepare to go on site, hiring staff, ordering materials and undertaking site-enabling works. I believe that full construction was due to commence in two weeks' time and two weeks ago, out of the blue, the Minister, Deputy James Browne, wrote to the PPP Co. project board collapsing the bid. This has effectively put the delivery of these homes and other homes in the forthcoming bundles 4 and 5 at risk. What I cannot really understand is that if the bundle was so bad that Government could not proceed with it, why it did not inform the bidders of this fact nine months ago. There is a real possibility of litigation here. It is understood that upwards of €8 million has been spent by the developers between procurement, architectural design and site-readying works. Not only is it causing lengthy delays in the delivery of much-needed homes, it will also potentially impact 1,400 jobs. We are in the midst of a housing crisis and this will significantly impact the much-needed delivery of homes that the witnesses have been speaking about throughout the meeting. Will the Secretary General explain why the plug was pulled on this at the eleventh hour?