Professor Michael McMahon:

One of the comments was about investment and the national development plan. I refer to the answer I gave earlier, which is that we welcome the national development plan. There are issues relating to overruns, particularly the extent to which they squeeze out other projects. We spoke about how capital investment projects need to be well assessed in terms of cost-benefit analysis and the benefits one can get for further growth further down the road. Of course, if one squeezes out projects by spending a lot more on one project, one will not necessarily get as much of a boost.

I also raised one risk that comes with big capital investment projects, namely, that they generate a maintenance and upkeep cost.

This has implications for current spending in the future which also need to be carefully thought through, even in the case of one-off projects, as all of these projects are. Certainly, the issue of pensions and health is one on which the secretariat is actively working. I hope, at a future date, we will be able to refer to that work in a longer answer.