Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

All options, including but not limited to a borrowing framework, will be considered in this regard. I visited the Munster Technological University in Kerry last week to look at the science, technology, engineering and maths building that is in bundle 1 of the PPP. This is not exclusively about borrowing capacity. It is important to point out that direct Exchequer funding is being used by a lot of the TUs at the moment together with the PPP model. We are delivering a substantial capital investment in the TUs at the moment. Now as we are about to have a new Minister for Finance, this is one of the issues I will be anxious to speak to him about. All of the borrowing by TUs, if there were to be borrowing into the future, will go onto the State's balance sheet so I am conscious of that. At the end of the day, it is not about getting sidetracked into a cul-de-sac that it has to be a borrowing framework only. There are other methodologies, including the PPP option, and direct Exchequer funding, which we are using in the TUs at the moment and has been quite successful.

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