The only game in town: public private partnerships in the Irish water services sector

Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) transfer significant responsibility for infrastructure and public service delivery to the private sector. This raises questions in relation to accountability in the context of PPP. An important accountability mechanism is the Value for Money (VFM) assessment which procuring authorities in Ireland must conduct prior to adoption of PPP. This paper examines the application of VFM appraisal procedures in the case of the water services sector. As the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government, considers PPP as the preferred model of procurement, VFM assessments fail to deliver an acceptable level of accountability. The result is a mono-culture of PPP procurement in the water services sector.