Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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I apologise as I had a Topical Issue and have just come back, although I was here earlier.

I am very concerned about the aura that now surrounds this project and the fact there was extensive wining and dining of Ministers who are members of Government, and who may or may not have discussed the project at a number of dining opportunities. It is extraordinary in the history of public procurement in recent times, given the ministerial handbook, that this would have happened. I frankly wonder, in respect of the Minister's Department, his related Department and their role, about ministerial conduct and behaviour in guarding the State's interest and not allowing commercial interests to take undue advantage of the State. Did the Minister make inquiries as to where the senior civil servants in the line Department were when these social contacts were under way? Anyone who has read the ministerial handbook would literally be very shocked at some of the revelations which were made.

This remains a fear factor underlining this project. In other words, in the conviviality of a social-type occasion, basically, would the State get taken for a ride? Obviously, at times, people on the commercial side can be very charming, very compelling and one can get carried away. If they are millionaires and billionaires, then the people acting on the other side in a Government context could risk being anxious to please. Did any of that concern the Minister in terms of propriety?

The Minister referenced Eircom. The fact is that as a financial project which was initiated by a previous Fianna Fáil Government to a great fanfare of excitement, that investment in the financial model has been flipped over and over again, and is currently being flipped again. Therefore, my second question is, what is to prevent those who have been identified as the investors in the project from flipping the investment once that investment has been established? The nature of State risk in regard to public private partnerships, or parallels to public private partnerships, is that if one has a private investment in something that is a public good, and we have heard a lot of discussion of the importance of this public good, then the State cannot, in the event of the investment being flipped or the investment failing, suddenly close the public good. It cannot close the hospital, it cannot close the road and I put it to the Minister that it cannot close the broadband network because that would be unacceptable to citizens. Therefore, while the conversation is about risk being transferred to the private investor, the reality is quite different.

Does the Minister have a figure for the total amount spent on consultancy to date? We have heard reference to a whole host of different kinds of studies, value for money reviews, cost-benefit analyses and so on.

Can he give us a broad cost figure for the consultancy? How has he satisfied himself ultimately, as the lead decision-maker and adviser to his colleagues in Cabinet, that the risks are acceptable? How has he guarded against what happened with Eircom and what may very well happen with this, at which point the people of Ireland will be captives of a financial model that is very crude but very effective for the investors?