James O'Connor (Cork East, Fianna Fail)
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Retrospectively and for the future, we have this constant issue in Ireland when it comes to large scale capital projects which is true with health projects, and it will be very much the case in transport because of the decarbonisation of the economy, where we will have an increase in rail projects, which is to be expected. One is looking at light rail systems being put into places like Cork and other projects, which will take a significant amount of funding. Even in my own area, the Cork metropolitan area transport strategy, CMATS, is a €4.5 billion plan, albeit some of it will be backed by European funding. My point is that when it comes to our ability to identify these capital projects, implement them and construct what needs to be done, we are very bad at that in Ireland. Kicking the can down the road leads to increased costs. As part of that review process within the public spending code, I ask Mr Moloney whether anything is being done to improve our capacity to deliver on capital infrastructure projects and to look at the areas of cost-cutting.