Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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Members will have to bear with me now because I need to read one page from a letter that came in to us because it is central to the issue at hand. We have discussed this PPP contract manager situation at length and I must put this on the public record in the interests of fairness. I am now going to read from a letter that was sent to this committee on 10 June 2014 and resent to us last week. There has been a lot of talk about the PPP contract manager and I believe that as Chairman, I must be fair and balanced on this. I will now read Appendix Two of the aforementioned letter which details the qualifications of the PPP contracts manager in CIT, as follows:

Academic Qualifications

B.Sc (1st Hons) - NUIG

H. Dip. Ed (1st Hons) - NUIG

M. Sc (Research) - NUIG

M. Ed (1st Hons) - UCC

Relevant Experience

The PPP Contract Manager at CIT has 37 years experience in third-level education. He was Head of a Science Department at CIT for 14 years and has been Vice President for Development since 1996. He has extensive experience in public sector procurement and the development of major infrastructure at the Institute over that period.

Specific Experience of PPP Contracts

The Contract Manager led CIT's input into the contract negotiations for both PPP projects at CIT (the National Maritime College of Ireland and the CIT Cork School of Music) from the outset, and worked closely with the DoES officials, the NDFA and their advisors in developing the detailed brief and specifications for each of these projects.

Of particular relevance to the current role as a Contract Manager, is the fact that he had a major input into the User Requirements, Output Specification, Service Requirements and Facilities Management Agreements for both projects. This understanding of the Project Deliverables left him very well placed to monitor the Operators' delivery and compliance with the requirements of these contracts during their Operational phases following the Service's Commencement date at project handover.

The Contract Manager is also supported in his role by the Building & Estates Office and the Finance Office at CIT.

Within CIT, this individual also led the development of CIT's very successful Rubicon (Innovation) Centre - currently housing 55 start-up companies - and a number of significant R&D facilities funded under the HEA's Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI) among other infrastructure projects.

There is also a detailed schedule running to one and a half pages outlining the duties and responsibilities of the Minister's contract manager but I do not propose to read that out now. These duties and responsibilities were approved by the line Minister at the time. The document I have just read out indicates that the contract manager was fully competent in respect of those duties and responsibilities. I just wanted to put that information on the public record, in fairness to the contract manager. People felt that there were questions around this and the aforementioned letter provides the answer to those questions and needed to be put on the public record. I will close this topic now-----