Madam, - The withdrawal of the McNamara Group from several joint projects with Dublin City Council highlights the risky nature of public-private partnerships (PPPs) and the need to reappraise their use.
I am nearing the completion of a four-year PhD research thesis on the origins and outcomes of PPPs in Ireland and internationally from a public service perspective. The research reveals significant drawbacks.
1. PPPs are not necessarily cheaper than direct public funding. For example, the Comptroller and Auditor General found that schools provided under PPP schemes cost 8 to 13 per cent higher than those funded in the traditional manner.
2. PPPs that depend on private-sector funding are subject to market fluctuations. This means that if the private sector cannot identify the desired level of profitability in a project, it simply will not go ahead or, even worse, will collapse, leaving those needing the service in a very vulnerable position.
For example, the roll-out of the cancer strategy has been delayed, reportedly, because the HSE has found it difficult to get the private sector to take on projects.
Even more worrying are public housing regeneration projects, where communities that have been promised better housing and community services are being told that the projects could no longer be viable because of the collapse in the property market. They are now being left in estates that are being engulfed by social problems as the projects are put on hold. With state investment, this land could be used to reduce the extensive housing waiting lists and tackle vital long-term social regeneration.
It should be noted that the Department of the Environment and Dublin City Council have made it clear to communities that the only way their estates will undergo large-scale building and social regeneration is if they adopt the PPP route.
Yet PPPs appear to be no longer economically viable and attractive to developers.
So will vulnerable people be left to suffer whatever fate the property developers decide? - Yours, etc,
RORY HEARNE, Department of Geography, Trinity College, Dublin 2.