John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister back to the House. One is reminded of the adage about public transport buses, that there is never one available when one wants it but when a bus eventually arrives, several arrive together. So it is with debates on finance in the Seanad. In recent weeks there have been five or six discussions on finance, and the budget next week will provide more opportunities for the Minister and some of his colleagues to have further discussions on the issue in this House.

I welcome the Bill and will not oppose it being passed by the House. However, the Minister made a long contribution and I wish to take up on a number of the points he made. The main issue I have with the National Development Finance Agency is that there is not enough scrutiny of its role and operation by the Oireachtas. Perhaps we are to blame for that. There was a debate a few months ago on its activities but such debates should be held more frequently. Under this amending legislation we are giving more powers to the new section being established within the National Development Finance Agency. We should examine the operation of the agency in more detail, both in the Houses and at committee level.

The National Development Finance Agency was established more than four years ago. One of its principal functions is to advise State authorities on the optimal financing of priority public investment projects. It is an important function which should be carried out with a view to maximising value for money for the Exchequer. This has not always been given the priority it deserves by the Government over recent years. The Minister outlined a number of areas where success has been achieved in securing value for money from investment in public capital projects, so I will take this opportunity to remind the House of some areas where the Government has been less than successful.

The Minister put great emphasis on public private partnerships. This country has had a mixed record with PPPs and taxpayers have not always benefited to the extent they should have under the objectives of those partnerships. The toll bridges in Dublin are an example of public private partnerships that did not work to the optimal level. The Minister mentioned a number of school building schemes that are due to be undertaken on a public private partnership basis. The report earlier this year from the Comptroller and Auditor General on such public private partnerships found that some school projects were up to 20% more expensive than expected under this initiative. That is not how public private partnerships were sold to the public when they were introduced.

MediaLab Europe was established in May 2000 as a university level research and education centre, specialising in information technology and multimedia technologies. It was a joint collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The State invested almost €36 million in the project which collapsed in early 2005.

Since 1999, the Office of Public Works has acquired several properties, including a couple in my constituency, to house asylum seekers. Almost €20 million was spent on five locations which were never used. One of them is in County Carlow.

In November 1999, the Minister for Agriculture and Food received a proposal from Punchestown racecourse seeking funding of €7 million to build an extension to the show centre. The Department for Finance approved the full amount. In June 2000, Punchestown racecourse requested an additional €6.8 million, which was approved by the Minister for Finance. A further €1.48 million was sanctioned for the project by the Minister in 2002 and the total overrun on the scheme was €15 million.

It is also worth recalling the fiasco of what became known as the "Bertie bowl", that is, Campus Stadium Ireland. A sum of €100 million was spent between clearing the site and the initial feasibility studies on developing the stadium. This can hardly represent value for money for the taxpayer.

I have referred on a number of occasions to the flood relief scheme undertaken in Kilkenny in my constituency. It was initially costed at €13 million but eventually cost almost €50 million. Even then, significant changes had to be made subsequently to install a fish path on the river. This had not been successful when it was initially installed under the original project.

The cost of the Dublin Port tunnel was originally estimated in 1999 at €222 million. The estimate was increased in 2000 to €450 million and the final expected cost will be more than €1 billion.

Despite the Minister's comments, the Government's approach to spending taxpayers' money over the past nine years offers numerous examples of vast wastage of money. For that reason, it is necessary that the House take as many opportunities as possible to discuss spending.

The Fine Gael and Labour Party approach was outlined recently in a joint policy document on strategic planning. The key to the approach is giving the Taoiseach and Tánaiste a central role in setting a limited number of strategic priorities for the Government. Furthermore, the Taoiseach and Tánaiste will assess ministerial performance against key, high level targets. They will have a direct role in setting priorities for the Estimates process and will be assisted by an Estimates strategy group tasked with ensuring that the Estimates reflect strategic priorities.

We will enhance the role of the Department of Finance both as promoter of economic and social development and as monitor of public spending outcomes. The Estimates process will be reformed to provide for a strategic reserve fund. We will establish a critical infrastructure commission to analyse key infrastructural priorities and monitor progress on major infrastructural programmes for economic, social and regional progress. We will also reform project management by introducing a gateway system for major capital projects to enhance accountability and pin down responsibilities, and by introducing a new reporting system for priorities to highlight emerging problems.

These policy priorities are outlined in the document, The Buck Stops Here, which the Minister is welcome to read.