Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 191: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the person, in respect of all major capital projects, taking responsibility for the project; if any of the projects have displayed cost overruns or delays; and if so, the projects concerned. [19169/07]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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Capital projects funded by my Department are, in the main, initiated by local authorities, with the exception of a limited number of capital projects relating to my Department's heritage programmes.

In the case of capital projects initiated by local authorities under Exchequer funded capital programmes, my Department fulfils the role of sanctioning authority and is responsible for approving in principle the capital projects, provision of capital grants in whole or in part as appropriate, and the conditions under which a project may proceed through the stages of development to ultimately becoming fully operational. Overall responsibility for the contractual and management arrangements for these projects, including the appointment of project managers, rests with individual local authorities. In deciding appropriate project management arrangements for a particular project, local authorities have been advised to follow the Guidelines for the Appraisal and Management of Capital Expenditure Proposals in the Public Sector published by the Department of Finance.

Local authorities at present have in the region of 5,000 projects at various stages of development. My Department does not have detailed information regarding many of those projects, and its compilation would involve a disproportionate amount of time and work. Details of project durations and costs for major exchequer funded projects costing over €30 million are, however, set out at appendix 6 of my Department's Annual Report for 2006, a copy of which is available in the Oireachtas Library.