Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Howlin will know the arrangements under public private partnerships, PPPs. The strength and, if one chooses to call it such, the weakness of these arrangements is that the responsibility lies with the contracting party to complete the schools and hand them over. In this case that party is now the Dutch Infrastructure Fund, DIF. The State will not be making payments until that handover has occurred. It is DIF that is undertaking the tender for the completion of those works, not the State. That is as it should be because the State cannot breach the rules of a PPP agreement and hope that the terms will be honoured.

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