Professor Eoin Reeves:

I will try to answer the question as best as I can. Ideally, the answer should have been given as accurately as possible in the ownership report that was published at the end of 2015. I read the report then and I read it again in preparation for today and I cannot get away from my conclusion that the State-owned model was dismissed too easily. The arguments were not very convincing. As a corollary, a huge degree of faith was put in the PPP approach which, as it turns out, is always more complicated than often anticipated at the beginning. There is a constituency that believes in a more private sector led approach but basic economic theory will tell one that in such complex projects, where there are huge degrees of uncertainty around issues like technology, it is almost a common sense thing. Economics is a common sense subject sometimes but it would suggest that the solution will be closer to the State-owned model and away from the market-based model because, in circumstances like that, markets do not work well when there is huge uncertainty, great complexity and so on. This is exactly what we see being played out. I think the State would be better protected with a State-owned model and that choice should have been made at the beginning.