Results 16,441-16,460 of 26,404 for speaker:David Cullinane

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: I welcome Mr. Nolan and his team to the meeting and commend them on the first-class job that their organisation does. I will start with PPPs. How many are under the remit of TII?

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: There are eight toll roads. Is that correct?

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: I ask Mr. Nolan to explain the rationale for using PPPs.

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: What I am hearing from Mr. Nolan is that the main logic behind PPPs is that they are an alternative way of raising revenue to pay for infrastructure. That was the main logic behind the use of PPPs.

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: A lot of the PPPs were in play and we used them long before there was any downturn or difficulty in raising revenue. What processes are in place to evaluate the cost effectiveness or cost benefit of using PPPs, at both project conception and following delivery, in terms of look back? I ask the representatives to enlighten me as to how that process works from the perspective of TII in terms...

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: Okay. Has the Comptroller and Auditor General's office examined the processes the State uses to evaluate the cost effectiveness or the benefit of using PPPs, including the conception stage of a project, the public sector benchmark and look-back exercises afterwards? Has the office conducted analysis of international comparisons? Do countries do this differently or better than we do?

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: I thank Mr. McCarthy for that. I refer to the non-publication of the analysis. Mr. Kennedy said the TII carries out an cost-benefit analysis but if this committee or another sectoral committee cannot probe it and cannot see the evidence and the information, it is difficult for us to truly understand whether we are getting value for money. The Comptroller and Auditor General said he has...

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: I am talking about the here and now. I asked earlier how Mr. Nolan can convince me that we get good value for money. I raised two areas with the Comptroller and Auditor General, namely, the pre-construction or concept stage and look-back exercises. When a project is at concept stage, a cost-benefit analysis is done but the information is not shared or published. Why is that the case? I...

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: I am stuck for time. We have 15-minute slots and we try to get distinct answers. With respect, Mr. Nolan has not answered the question regarding the cost analysis when a project is at concept stage or before it goes to tender. I am not talking about commercially sensitive information; I am talking about the bones of a project and whether it is viable to do it directly using State...

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: Is that information published?

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: When?

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: I thank Mr. Nolan for his response. Hopefully, we will see improvements. In two PPPs relating to tolls - the M3 Clonee-Kells scheme and the M18 Limerick tunnel - there was a shared risk.

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: Why was the decision taken to share the risk?

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: Is it not the case that part of the logic in using PPPs is that the private sector would take on some of the risk? That is what we are told and I suppose it is part of the attraction for the State also. If we are sharing the risk, we are making it easier as we are lightening the load of the private sector. PPP projects seem to be in areas where there is not much risk at all, but that is...

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: We will stick with tolls and PPP projects for the moment. I imagine at concept stage that targets are set for volumes of road users who would pay tolls.

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: Is there an analysis the witnesses can share with the committee of targets set before a road was constructed, for example, X number of vehicles paying a toll over X number of years and cases where the targets were not met? Will Mr. Nolan or Mr. Kennedy point me to any part of the country where targets were set prior to construction and where those targets are not being met?

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: I asked a specific question. I will be pulled up on time.

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: Perhaps I might be more helpful. I am thinking specifically about the toll road in Waterford, the Waterford to Cork road that was built as part of the Waterford to Dublin motorway project. Obviously, clear targets were set at concept stage pre-construction. Have they been met year-on-year? I appreciate that the witnesses carry out a long-term analysis, but have the targets been met for...

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: They have not.

Public Accounts Committee: Transport Infrastructure Ireland: Financial Statements 2016 (12 Oct 2017)

David Cullinane: If that is the case, has a possible buy-out been looked at? Is that something that could be examined if the targets are not been met?