Mr. John McCarthy:

There is a framework in place through the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform for how value for money is to be assessed for PPPs. The most fundamental part of that is the development of the public sector benchmark which the National Development Finance Agency advises on. The public sector benchmark is a calculation of what the provision of the asset and its management and maintenance over the period involved would actually come to if it was delivered through normal mechanisms in addition to taking account of the value of risk that is transferred to the private entity. Subject to the bidding process and what emerges through it, there is a comparison done between the cost proposed by the PPP bidder versus the public sector benchmark. A project will only proceed if the cost through the PPP process is less than the public sector benchmark.