This presentation was made by Paddy HOWARD, Ireland, at the 3rd OECD Forum on Governance of Infrastructure held in Paris on 26 March 2018

1. Public Investment Management
Assessment: Ireland 2017
Paddy Howard
Capital Section
Department of Public Expenditure and Reform
Ireland

2. Context: 2017 Review of Capital Plan
(Percent of GDP/GNI*)
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
Ireland
Advanced Economies
EU
• Infrastructure gaps were emerging
• Need to support balanced and inclusive growth

3. Context: Why did Ireland seek a PIMA?
• PIMA provided a necessary external view of
• Infrastructure stock
• Efficiency of spend
• Governance
• Input to develop a new evidence-based strategy, along with
• Review of existing capital plan, including infrastructure demand analysis
• New National Planning Framework

4. What does PIMA look at?
Fifteen institutions, grouped under three headings
• Planning
• Fiscal rules, national and sectoral planning, central-local co-ordination, public-
private partnerships, regulation of infrastructure companies
• Allocation
• Multi-year budgeting, budget comprehensiveness, budget unity, project
appraisal and project selection
• Implementation
• Protection of investment, availability of funding, transparency of execution,
project management, assets accounting

5. How did the PIMA process work?
• Intensive two week process, following initial scoping meeting
• Desk review of relevant national policies and strategies
• Meeting with main Government stakeholders
• Concludes with report to Minister
• Process took place in July - Formal report published in September

6. What did PIMA conclude?
• Ireland has relatively strong infrastructure, with some sectoral weaknesses;
• Management of public investment is generally good, but with scope for
improvement; and
• Relatively low headline efficiency of public investment

7. Possible Efficiency Gap
Ireland
0
50
100
150
200
250
0 10,000 20,000 30,000 40,000
Infrastructureindex-Hybridindicator
(Output)
PublicCapital StockperCapita(Input)
Frontier
• Headline efficiency
measure poses a
challenge
• But how to interpret?
• Each sector has its own
story

8. PIMA Main Recommendations
• Strengthen the linkages between the planning framework and resourcing
• Explicitly align resourcing to support balanced growth
• Tighten financial rules on PPPs
• Set up a “project tracker” database and publish more ex post reviews and audits
• Establish a central register of assets, and improve budgeting for maintenance

9. What has been done?
• Project Ireland 2040: ten year Capital Plan aligned with new Planning Framework
• Ambitious, but realistic, plan for balanced regional growth built around cities
• Supports continued growth of Dublin, and Dublin-Belfast corridor
• Grounded in evidence generated from PIMA and other analyses

10. Last thoughts on PIMA
• Process created a momentum for change
• Excellent external expertise
• Pre-planning important – we had a clear picture of what the process
could do for us
• Crystallised the themes that were important
• Alignment of resources to spatial plans and national strategies
• Generating and sharing evidence
• Protection of existing capital stock
• Delivered at the right time to influence our strategy

11. Useful Links
• https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/CR/Issues/2017/11/10/Ireland-
Technical-Assistance-Report-Public-Investment-Management-
Assessment-45383
• http://www.gov.ie/en/project-ireland-2040