Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I warmly support the Bill and I welcome the Minister. The Bill is a well thought out initiative. The Minister provided the Government or official pedigree of the Bill, I would like to fill out the picture by giving its political pedigree.

The Bill was a major centrepiece of the Fianna Fáil manifesto in May of this year. The manifest proposed to establish, under the auspices of the NTMA, a new National Development Finance Agency to finance major public projects and evaluate all financing aspects of PPP projects. As Senator Phelan has already acknowledged, this is not an area in respect of which one talks about broken promises.