Brendan Ryan (Labour)

There was some jousting during the Order of Business about ideologies and "isms" of various kinds. I have no objection to public private partnerships. Any concerns I have are based on a feeling that perhaps the driving force behind such schemes is ideological. Where they work properly, however, nobody could object to them. Who could object to the introduction of additional finance into public capital expenditure, finance which might not otherwise be available? There can be no objection to the use of public private partnerships for providing up-front funding for projects which might otherwise be delayed for ten years. However, concerns could be raised if one were to adopt the proper hard-headed approach of a competent accountant or economist. In Ballincollig and Dunmanway in Cork, I have seen the quality of the schools about which Senator Scanlon spoke. They exist, are superb and look wonderful. I am pleased for the people of those areas whose children have a place in such fine schools, which provide such fine service.

However, two legitimate questions must be raised and were raised by the Comptroller and Auditor General, perhaps in badly chosen language. One question is whether the money being spent by the State is proportionate or excessive to the quality of what is being delivered. It is difficult to compare the full cost of the Cork School of Music, which the Comptroller and Auditor General in one report put at approximately €300 million, with the ongoing costs required over a period. He raised the question of how a project originally estimated to cost €45 million would end up costing €300 million. I am reluctant to be critical of him because he fulfils an extraordinarily important role. Nevertheless, that was a less than intellectually satisfying response by him to the complexities of trying to compare how that project would be funded now with how it would be funded over 25 years, covering routine maintenance, refurbishment, etc.

I am reasonably knowledgeable about project economics, which was part of my original profession as an engineer. Everyone who knows anything about project economics or project costing knows that once one gets into the time value of money, there is an element of subjective judgment. Questions about internal rates of return and about the discount rate used are all a matter of judgment. Different companies in the chemical industry, with which I am familiar, use different indices for those measures and, therefore, come up with different answers. That is why some companies, for example in the chemical industry, expect a pay-back time of two years on an investment, some expect three years and some will tolerate four years, but that will also depend on the project. If we go the route of having useful public private partnerships, we must begin to put together dispassionate cost analysis and cost evaluations of such projects. We should always welcome new ways of doing things, new ideas and thinking.

My party's position on roads is to oppose tolls, with which I do not agree. I want to make that clear. My only problem with tolling roads — Senator O'Toole also referred to this — is that some of the tolling is in the wrong place. In other words, it the last place one would want it. For example, tolling a bypass around the town of Fermoy seems not to be the way to proceed, although tolling could be done on a road which incorporated that bypass without landing the people of Fermoy with the possible short-term, if not long-term, consequences of traffic diversion because of a toll.

I do not have great sympathy for the Irish Road Haulage Association. If its members are still insisting on going through Drogheda instead of paying the tolls on the motorway, it would be no harm if the Department of Transport and the Garda began to carry out fairly detailed checks on every road haulage vehicle that goes through Drogheda to see whether it meets all the requirements of the various regulations. It is time the drivers of those vehicles went where they are supposed to go. I do not have much sympathy with individual hauliers.

I have two problems with the tolling of the Westlink bridge. First, it has caused the most incredible traffic jams because it was badly designed, planned and laid out. Second, the toll company does not have the courtesy to tell a culchie like myself the toll I must pay until I get to the plaza.