Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy's party displayed an unbridled enthusiasm for PPPs when it was in government. In fact, the largest quantity of PPPs was implemented under the party's current leader. Whatever views the Deputy has now are very different from what was displayed when Deputy Howlin was Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.

With regard to the Deputy's question on how we complete projects, difficulties with projects such as these are very unfortunate but they can occur regardless of the procurement process for the projects. Where difficulty occurs the payments the State is required to make to the people who are involved in delivering the project will not be made until the State is satisfied that the project is completed to the standard required.

As regards the schools, a number of meetings took place during February about the schools with the school principals. The National Development Finance Agency, NDFA, participated in all those meetings. The latest position on the contractual negotiations is that the Dutch Infrastructure Fund is now in the process of finalising its rectification plan, which I hope will deal with the matters the Deputy raised.

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