The Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) and the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) have called on the Government to speed up vital spending on infrastructure to bring the State up to international standards by 2006.

In a report presented to Government, the two groups call for a "more vigorous" approach to be taken to bringing private enterprise and the Government together to provide for vital projects. The projects include motorways from Dublin to Cork and Newry, the Eastern Link in Dublin, LUAS, landfill sites and mainline rail improvements.

Responding to the report, the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, said there would be "no lack of willingness or commitment on her part or that of the Government to press ahead with private sector involvement or the construction of major infrastructural projects".

The paper comes just weeks before the Cabinet is expected to outline a number of test projects for public private partnership. The Cabinet is expected to approve a pilot list of about 10 partnerships ranging from work on the LUAS to bypasses on the Dublin to Newry road, as well as a waste water treatment plant in north Dublin.

IBEC director, Mr Peter Brennan said he was now calling on the Government not only to announce those pilot projects but also to set up a task force to drive the structure forward and identify and eliminate as many of the barriers as possible.

"The Government also needs to announce a second set of proposals and allow these to move into pre-planning," Mr Brennan said. He added that it was also necessary to eliminate the significant barriers to the partnerships in the legal, financial and tendering areas.

IBEC has put forward 28 recommendations which will, according to Mr Brennan, overcome all these obstacles. These include measures such as introducing model contracts and streamlining the tendering procedure.

He added that, if all the measures were followed, there was no reason why the £47 billion infrastructure deficit identified by the ESRI should not be eliminated by 2006. The Eastern Link road for Dublin, for example, could be completed in five rather than 20 years, according to Mr Brennan.

The Government will also be considering public private partnerships within the context of the National Development Plan which is to be sent to Brussels this summer to secure further structural funding. The Government has already commissioned Fitzpatrick Associates to highlight and prioritise the projects for the next round of structural funding from the EU. However, with an upper limit of £4 billion, the amount of funds available from the EU is mere short change in terms of what needs to be spent to bring Ireland up to European standards, according to Mr Brennan.

He added that eastern European states were now building about one kilometre of road a day, where we are building about one a month. "We are simply not at the races," he said.

The Taoiseach, the Tanaiste and the Minister for Finance have all come out strongly in favour of joint ventures between the Exchequer and private enterprise in recent weeks. The main priority for the Department of Finance is to ensure that the taxpayer gets the best value for money over the lifetime of the project. There are issues around whether funding the projects will add to the national debt as well as the cost of delaying the projects and the management of cost and risk.

For most of the road projects identified by IBEC, a system of "shadow tolling" would be used. This means that the Exchequer would pay the contractor a set amount each year to build, design and maintain a project, for example a road. There would be no toll booths and after a set number of years the road would revert to the public sector. This means taxpayers are still paying for the road but over a longer period of time than is the case at the moment.