Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

——since it has been strongly forced by them.

On Deputy Rabbitte's question concerning the centre for expertise, Departments still have responsibility for identifying the project. The difficulty is that all of them went to different locations to get advice, with no co-ordination. It is brought together around the Cabinet sub-committee on infrastructure but, by and large, officials and public servants do not have the expertise. Issues that arose in examining public private partnerships included the appropriate expertise on how best to undertake a project, as the Deputy correctly said, how best to finance it, the engineering solution, where we could examine the model for best international practice and who could do so. To say the least it was not very coherent.

It has been decided that this centre for expertise will be located in one place, the National Development Finance Agency, whose role will be expanded to include a procurement function on behalf of the Departments. On an agency basis, therefore, the NDFA will be able to procure on behalf of Departments. Until now, it had an advisory role to Departments on PPP procurement and, as I said, the agency has started that work on a non-statutory basis.

The legislation governing the NDFA allows for far more flexibility to hire expert staff and interact at home and abroad with the appropriate people. The agency has taken on extra board members and will be able to hire additional experts in various areas. It will have a significant effect in being able to assist Departments to move the project forward. That is the idea. My understanding is that legislation will be required but the centre is being established on a non-statutory basis, at this stage at least.

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