Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

To answer the questions in reverse order, I am aware of Deputy Ó Caoláin's outright opposition to public private partnerships. PPPs can be and are used to meet public sector benchmarks. We establish if there is a way to carry out a project through public private partnership which is better than through the traditional procurement method. There is no doubt that the private sector is in a position to deliver projects far more quickly, unfortunately, than the public sector currently can. It is a reality those of us who support public services must ensure we deal with to get the efficiencies required. Taxpayers are agnostic in Tubbercurry and everywhere else about who builds a school as long as they get one. It is our job as the people who are accountable for taxpayers' money to ensure the process we use, whether traditional procurement or PPP, and the mechanisms we put in place confirm for taxpayers that we have adopted the most effective approach.

PPPs are a feature of our multi-annual capital programme and will remain so. I would hate to think where our roads programme would be were we simply depending on traditional public sector procurement and interaction between local authorities to build a motorway system.

See this speech in context