Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 8 April 2014

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation

Investment Commitments to SME Sector: National Treasury Management Agency

2:25 pm

Mr. Eugene O'Callaghan:

Ability to deliver is of critical importance. We come in at a second or third stage of the PPP project process. Therefore, the project will have originated at whatever part of Government or local government wants to initiate the project. Typically, the National Development Finance Agency, or the National Roads Authority in relation to roads projects, has responsibility in many cases for pulling together the project which includes tendering for contractors and consortiums who will design, build and deliver. The NDFA is a sister business unit of ours within the NTMA. It is only at that stage that the financing requirement becomes clear. It is only at that stage that the ISIF, or any other third party providers of capital, would become involved. By the time we get to become involved in projects, we would expect that the ability to deliver has been dealt with. If there are any policy reasons as to why party X or Y should not be dealt with, that should have been weeded out by the time it comes to us. If we had concerns on the ability to deliver, it would certainly impact our willingness to provide finance, but we think it would be unlikely.