Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

People Before Profit has always opposed public private partnerships as a means to build schools, housing or other vital infrastructure. What has happened with Carillion and has now affected Coláiste Ráithín, St. Philomena's, the Eureka secondary school, Tyndall college and the Carlow Institute for Further Education confirms what we predicted when the Government and the main Opposition party embraced the notion of public private partnerships. What happened with McNamara and the housing developments in this city has happened now with Carillion, and several other PPP projects, in that when the private for-profit entity goes bust or walks away, whatever it might be, we are left holding the can. It is not the private sector which takes the risk it is the school students who have been existing in poor school conditions for years, hoping to get into a new school building and then fall victim to private interests who are in the business not of delivering schools but of making profits and if they are not making profits they walk away or go out of business. That is the fundamental problem with PPPs.

First, we need emergency legislation to get hold of those schools and ensure that the children can go into those building. The situation should not be allowed delay people going in and using those schools. We should recognise that we have to get those schools back into full public ownership so they are not controlled or dependent in any way on private for-profit interests. The Committee on Budgetary Oversight, the Committee of Public Accounts and any other relevant committees should now examine in detail what happened in the public private partnership in which Carillion was involved but also the public private partnership model must be investigated and examined to see whether, as I believe is the case, it is something that should be abandoned for the provision of schools and other vital infrastructure.

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