Discord over new Cork music school

The Public Private Partnership (PPP) approach to development is a "wheeze" invented by the Government to pretend it is not borrowing, the Green Party has claimed in the Dáil.

Its Cork TD, Mr Dan Boyle, hit out at the way the PPP system had failed in the controversy over the building of a new Cork School of Music. Eurostat, the EU finance monitoring body, "has seen through" this borrowing wheeze, he said.

"The Government should present these projects more honestly and pay for them from the public Exchequer."

There was Opposition anger in the Dáil over the delay in the construction of the school and Mr David Stanton (FG, Cork East) said that 3,000 students had been discommoded.

Rooms were being rented in hotels in Cork to hold music lessons because of this "awful mess", and he demanded that someone take responsibility.

The Cork East TD stressed the "importance of this project to the southern half of the country because Cork will be the European city of culture in 2005".

The Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, said the project was a "worthy one", and he realised that the school lecturers in about 17 different locations in Cork. However, "as with every other project, it can only proceed if the money is available" and if the Eurostat issue could be resolved.

A contract had been agreed between the Government and Jarvis Projects Ltd for the construction of the school, but a planning appeal delayed the development until December 2001. Department of Finance officials subsequently raised a number of issues and then the intervention of Eurostat has delayed construction indefinitely.

The EU financial watchdog ruled that the PPP agreement on the school of music was effectively the equivalent of Government borrowing because the contract involved a deferred payment by the State to the company. It would thus affect the State's General Government Balance, a measure that has to be adhered to under EU obligations.

Mr Dempsey said the Government disagreed with Eurostat, and was trying to resolve the matter satisfactorily.