Mr. Ronnie Downes:

On housing policy, value for money and a good return from the housing assistance payment, HAP, I covered it to some degree in my responses to Deputy Durkan. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has done several spending review analyses and produced a series of analytical papers which have had a critical look at the relative return on the HAP-type models versus building-type models. I refer the Deputy to some of the findings from those spending review papers.

Our colleagues in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage have their own priorities. There is always a balance to be struck between meeting the immediate needs of someone who actually needs to have their housing situation addressed versus putting in place some long-term developmental measures. The people best placed to directly address those important issues are my colleagues in the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

To the extent that this performance report sheds some light on some of those policy achievements, policy trade-offs and value for money, if Deputies want more indicators to be developed to help them in their oversight work, we are happy to listen to what emerges from discussions.

As regards procurement, my colleagues in the Office of Government Procurement are the experts in all of this. The Deputy raised an issue about risk. On the one hand, we have a highly developed and professionalised public procurement system. It delivers many benefits in terms of integrity, consistency, clients of European frameworks and so on. In that sense, we have a best-in-class procurement model from a compliance perspective.

The Deputy raised the issue of whether this has come at a cost of some overcomplication, as well as at a cost of making things more difficult for local contractors and local businesses to get in on big contracts. That is something my colleagues in the Office of Government Procurement are very much alive to. For example, on page 85 of the performance report, there is a series of indicators from the Office of Government Procurement which includes the frameworks and mini-competitions which have been developed and implemented. They were developed specifically with a view to facilitating engagement with a broader range of contractors, not just the biggest contractors. Then there are the numbers of users on e-tenders and how matters are dealt with on the help desk and so on. This is the sort of topic which would benefit from detailed engagement with the committee and my Office of Government Procurement colleagues directly. I will certainly pass on some of those remarks.

The Deputy mentioned some issues with public works contracts. I was not aware of the specific case about the 14 primary care centres which the Deputy said has given rise to some issues. Public private partnerships, PPPs, have some pros and cons to them. As a model, they have been quite effective in rolling out a round of public infrastructure with the involvement of private partners, both national and international. This has been seen with the provision of, for example, schools and courthouses.

Among the benefits of public private partnerships, if things go wrong, say one of the contractors goes bust, the State can be protected from some of the financial fallout which would not arise otherwise. We saw that in recent years when school building projects have run into issues but it was all dealt with on the private rather than the public side of the equation. There are benefits. It is a question of the trade-off and the balance of benefits versus costs and various risks. I was not aware of issues about control, access, operation and capabilities associated with these buildings. I will take that up with colleagues in the Department of Health and the HSE to see what specifically the case is.

With regard to the more general points the Deputy raised about public works contracts and whether they have become overly adversarial over time, this is an issue under review. Colleagues in the Office of Government Procurement who are responsible for the public works contract are undertaking a review of that, including with regard to some of those issues the Deputy raised.

The final point the Deputy raised is about capital expenditure and the degree to which it could give rise to inflationary consequences, for example. We are aware of the fact that there has been a huge ramping up of capital expenditure over recent years, not just in the context of the pandemic response. Even before we take account of capital carryover and exceptional pandemic payments, this year we are at over €10 billion in capital expenditure. It is the largest level of capital expenditure in the history of the State. That carries with it some challenges in terms of ability. As I mentioned earlier, there is an obligation on the public sector to work with colleagues across the sector, while developing our capabilities and having a professional relationship with colleagues in the private sector. That is something we are actively working on at the moment.

We commissioned a report from EY to review phase 1 of the national development plan to look at different aspects and dimensions of what needs to be upgraded in terms of public sector capability. There are many areas of good practice but also much work to be done. We are working on that. Just last Friday-----