Noel Treacy (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

Senator Paddy Burke is correct – of course public private partnerships are commercial entities that exist to make money. There is nothing wrong with that. We are giving a new dimension to the State financing and procurement area, giving it commercial teeth and taking it away from the situation where it has been a constant drain on the Exchequer, where the tap is run and the nation is bled dry. We have to ensure that does not happen and that we give an opportunity for private sector resources to be deployed to improve public infrastructure. A new vehicle is being created to assist that, the National Development Finance Agency.

This amendment would constitute a significant amendment to the National Pensions Reserve Fund Act. There are no plans at present by either the Government or the Minister for Finance to alter the arrangements in relation to the national pensions reserve fund. There is nothing in that legislation to prevent the pensions fund commissioners investing in infrastructural projects, subject to the overriding requirement in the legislation to invest prudently and to seek the optimum return for the fund. That is what the commissioners are charged to do. The national pensions reserve fund has managed to achieve the highest rate of return on its investment.

The NDFA will seek value for money with the lowest cost of funds possible for delivering the project and develop value for money financing mechanisms for infrastructural projects. This amendment would place statutory requirements on the NDFA and that would not work. It would tie the hands of the NDFA and the pensions fund commissioners.

There is nothing, however, to stop the commissioners, as they see fit, from investing in these projects. It would be foolish to insert an amendment that could jeopardise the flexibility required by the commissioners and the NDFA. Consequently I cannot accept the amendment.