Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

310. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform the current position regarding the revised Manual on Government Deficit and Debt, MGDD, published by EUROSTAT on 4 March 2016; the implications of these guidelines for the treatment of existing and future public-private partnerships, PPPs; the implications for future profit sharing between the State and PPPs; if he has had any discussion with the European Commission on this issue; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [29638/16]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

In response to PPP stakeholders' calls for greater clarity on the way in which Eurostat classifies public private partnerships, in the wake of the publication in March of the Revised Manual on General Government and Debt (MGDD), the European PPP Expertise Centre (EPEC) and Eurostat have worked together over recent months to produce a practitioners' guide with a view to bringing greater clarity and improving the understanding of how the rules on PPPs used by Eurostat are applied in practice.

The output of this process was "A Guide to the Statistical Treatment of PPPs" which was published on 29 September as a joint EPEC/Eurostat document.  The Guide constitutes official Eurostat guidance and complements, interprets and clarifies Eurostat's previous publications on the statistical treatment of PPPs.

My Department is currently examining the Guide, in conjunction with the NDFA and the CSO, and is attending an EPEC statistical treatment working group meeting this week, arranged specifically to consider and discuss the new Guide, with Eurostat also attending for part of the meeting.  Accordingly, a final assessment of the implications for Irish PPPs of this latest Eurostat guidance will only be possible following the detailed consideration of the document which is already underway.  However, I understand the initial indications are that the key concerns which had been expressed in relation to the uncertainty created by the revised MGDD issued in March do appear to have been clarified in the new guidance, in a manner which appears to address most of the key concerns originally raised by the Irish authorities.