Mr. Tom Parlon:

We want to do it across the board. We want to take it out of current expenditure. The indications this year is the economy will grow very substantially, even in excess of the target that is laid out, by perhaps 4%. Whatever excess there is should certainly go towards it. The Government has indicated that in the capital review it plans to make extra funds available.

As a general body representing the contractors of the country, on the one hand PPPs bring on board projects that could not be funded otherwise, but on the other hand they are very elitist and really only deal with the really big contractors. They exclude many of the small ones so we have reservations there, but we certainly feel that some of the projects that could not find financing otherwise should be funded through PPPs. We understand the cost of funding a PPP is substantially lower now because of our improved financial rating.

The European Investment Bank has just opened a branch here. We have two vice presidents. We have an event in Dublin shortly which will be attended by Commissioner Hogan, the vice president of the European Investment Bank and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. It will be a big colloquium of other professionals and we will all be presenting papers there. There is scope where the European Investment Bank opens local offices for its lending to that particular country to expand very substantially. While there have been 13 or 14 projects in the past 15 or 18 months, it is still minimal in terms of the scope that is there. We see that as a direction. We then have the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, ISIF, which should be used to full effect.

As an industry representative group, we do not mind where the funding comes from.

We know it is not going to come out of thin air. That funding needs to be an absolute priority in terms of the infrastructure deficits that exist.