Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Risk is a factor often given by those advocating public private partnerships as a method of building public infrastructure. That risk factor is a bit of a myth because there is no risk for the private operator in terms of public infrastructure. The risk lies entirely with the public element of it. That is shown by the failure of the project to regenerate St. Michael's estate headed by Bernard McNamara. When he pulled out of the project, it cost Dublin City Council at least €5 million and it cost Mr. McNamara €1.5 million. I see he is back up around the corner, rebuilding again. The State had to fork out €35 million on a PPP that failed to deal properly with odour alleviation at the Poolbeg incinerator. It had to pay that money to shore up mistakes made by the private operator.

There are other risk areas that I could talk about. Most sensible people would look at the question of risk and then say to look at the money made by the privately operated M50 toll bridge. The State built the M50 and then the bridge was built under a PPP. What risk was being taken by the private operator? It was taking no risk. It was on to a good thing and making hundreds of millions out of it for years.

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