Minister and Department have serious questions to answer in relation to PPP fiasco
Minister and Department have serious questions to answer in relation to PPP fiasco - The Labour Party
- Decision by preferred bidder to initiate judicial review proceedings alarming
- Minister should not have waited until the 11th hour to cancel PPP contract
- What is the financial exposure for the State if the legal challenge succeeds?
Following the revelation today at the Joint Oireachtas Housing Committee that the preferred bidder for one of Dublin City Council’s PPP projects has initiated judicial review proceedings against the Department, the Minister and Department have serious questions to answer.
Labour Party Housing Spokesperson Conor Sheehan TD said that both the Minister and Department have serious questions to answer:
“The fact that the Minister had to be told at Committee by his officials that the preferred bidder for one of the PPP contracts he cancelled by ministerial directive has now commenced judicial review proceedings is alarming.
“The Minister should have known this and his officials should have told him. This begs the question as to who is in charge in the Department of Housing.
“I warned several weeks ago that the State was exposing itself to expensive and lengthy legal battles by deciding to pull this at the 11th hour.
“PPP is a poor value for money delivery stream and the Minister needs to rule it out for his new housing plan. He has effectively made it unviable because no developer will want to enter into a PPP in the knowledge that the Minsiter could cancel it at the 11th hour.
“There are huge questions to be answered in relation to what is going on in the Department of Housing when the Minister himself was not even told about this judicial review.
“Was the Minister warned by his officials about the possibility of litigation for pulling these homes at the last minute? Is there a threat of further legal action to come? And what is the financial exposure for the State if the legal challenge proceeds? We will need the Minister’s officals to present themselves before the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee to account for this.
“These are all questions that the Minister could not answer when I asked him at committee. PPP is poor value for money and should never have been used as a delivery model but we now have a situation where up to 3,000 homes could now be possibly lost to years of expensive legal wrangling.”