I regret that I have to take issue with Mr. Murphy on this subject which is significantly more complicated than he says it is. First, in Australia, when facilities were being put in place for the Sydney Olympic Games, the DBFOM system was used for the two major contracts, that is, the stadium and the indoor arena. Secondly, I readily appreciate that there are other methods and that a judgment has to be made as to which method is appropriate in particular circumstances. DBFOM means in essence three things: it means design and build on one side, it means, as Mr. Murphy suggests, significantly in some cases finance, but, in a critical sense, it means operate.
One of the points that was made to us by those in Australia, Britain and in the United States was that, in their judgment, the earlier the operator could be brought into play in a constructive relationship with the design build side, the better the project would be. While we were in Manchester, two hours was spent explaining to us that because they did not have the operator in place when the design-build took place, it subsequently cost them a significant amount of money.
Mr. Murphy is right when he says that finance is critical. Finance in a DBFOM contract will be related in a commercial sense to the extent of the surplus that will become available. If, for example, I contrast the aquatic centre - where in the European sense one is not talking of a surplus but a deficit, and in the Abbotstown case it is a relatively small surplus - with a stadium where there could be a very significant surplus if one had, as would have been the case in relation to the stadium planned for Abbotstown, a significant number of matches committed by sporting organisations. That is not relevant to this case but I make the point that finance, and the extent to which the private side will be prepared to bring to bear finance, is a function of their view of the surplus.
In this instance, from my perspective, the critical element is that if we look at the European experience - we are not talking about hundreds of thousands of pounds of subsidy in the case of Helsinki and Manchester, we are talking about millions of pounds - it was a good deal for the State to bring the private sector to bear as it would be prepared to operate leisure water facilities in particular and to make some surplus out of the 50-metre and 25-metre elements of the project. It is and does represent, in that context, a good deal for the State.
