Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)

——round sum accounting was always frowned on or viewed as a sign of difficulty. The round sum accounting in the underspend on transport in the Estimates is highly suspicious. The real figure is probably more. We need to know the full story about this. It cannot just all be saved up for another glam-rock launch on 7 December. I do not know how many relaunches people can take of Transport 21.

It is worth recalling the series of much ballyhooed pseudo-initiatives, so to speak, that the Taoiseach and his Ministers have launched to convince the electorate that they will deliver much needed infrastructure. Apart from the multi-annual spending framework of the former Minister for Finance, Mr. McCreevy, the National Development Finance Agency was also set up. This is another quango with more consultants and more fat salaries. We can well ask where is the beef and what good has it done.

Public-private partnerships were an earlier big idea of the former Minister for Finance, Mr. McCreevy, and the Tánaiste, Deputy Harney. Significant amounts of money have been spent on Civil Service salaries and much more on consultants' fees, yet what have we to show for it? We have schools that cost significantly more and took longer to build than in the ordinary way. We also have a Dublin waste treatment works that literally stinks parts of Ringsend on a bad day. However, unlike the National Development Finance Agency, public-private partnerships will have an effect. Not satisfied with what the M50 toll bridge extracts from motorists, the Taoiseach and his Ministers have a plan to have at least two tolls on every major road out of Dublin. Public-private partnerships are the means to do this and the plan is making progress. The Kilcock to Kinnegad motorway section will be a very expensive road. The Government has a significant amount of money, between €1.5 billion and €2 billion, to play with on budget day, 7 December, but Ministers have been out on the weekend talk shows trying to depress expectations.

The Labour Party has just published a detailed document on which we have worked for over two years. It sets out a humane framework for children being minded by their parents who are encouraged to spend time with them. In the Estimates for 2006, child benefit is estimated to cost €1.96 billion. A quarter of that would be €500 million, the same as the cost of the SSIA scheme. That would only provide between €35 and €45 per month for child care. If that is what parents get, the Government will be run out of it and it will deserve to be.

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