Mr. Paul Sheridan:

The Government is the biggest client in the market. Some 40% of the market is one client, namely, the Government. The Government has an obligation to the country to show what it wants to build for the country. We just want the Government to show it so that we can plan it.

On the private side, big corporations will set out their plans for five years. They will be tapping and engaging with the market, seeing whether contractors are interested and then they build. Unfortunately, they do not have to compete with EU procurement rules. Those rules make it very difficult for public bodies to procure. It is highly inflexible. The EU has now decided that the rules do not work. To sum up an audit it carried out, essentially, it wanted to make more competition but it went the wrong way. It is looking at reform. There is this parallel process where we are trying to get reform in Ireland while, at a macro level, the European Union has decided it needs to reform. We must build more flexibility and give less fear for a contracting authority. We have got to get rid of public contracting authorities being dragged into courts for injunctions or whatever because they might have broken an EU procurement law. We must get back to a point where public officials are trusted to make decisions and get on with projects.