I do. We had a presentation on the rail issue at the committee a few weeks ago at which a detailed report, which, I understand, has not yet been published by the Minister for Transport, was presented. The report contains a full examination of rail projects as they currently stand and also looks at rail in the long-term. There are short-term, medium-term and long-term priorities, with which the Minister must deal. It is a comprehensive and detailed report.
The Deputy asked a question on roads. A report is being prepared by the cross-departmental group, which is looking at all non-Exchequer sources of finance for infrastructure projects, not just tolling. The group must produce a report on whether alternative financing mechanisms have been found. As the Deputy will be aware from one of my previous answers, tolling is the mechanism which keeps coming up as it provides a stream of finance.
The Deputy will also be aware that the new National Development Finance Agency may set up companies. These will only be effective if they can raise money and generate streams of money from projects. The committee has not had meetings with those responsible for the national pension fund. If the NDFA has financial proposals which would be of benefit to the national pension fund, it is a matter for it to explore them. I have given my view on this matter previously. There is no reason the national pension fund should not finance some of the long-term capital projects. It is a matter for the NDFA to present a proposal which would be a good investment.
This year some €5.3 billion is being spent on infrastructure here, around twice the GDP ratio of other European countries. The only other EU state which spends anywhere near what we are spending on infrastructure is Luxembourg, which spends about 1% less than us. In GDP terms, we are spending about twice the European average on infrastructure. As we are investing significant resources, the question of the growth and stability pact does not arise. While it prevents countries spending more than the specified figure, we are already spending double what everybody else is spending, with the exception of Luxembourg.
Without going into detail, the main issue now facing the cross-departmental committee and the committee is that tender prices are returning to more realistic levels, which means we can get better value for money. Our problem in recent years has been that although we spent about €300 million more than projected on the roads programme by the end of its third year, we did not get the output we wanted due to construction price inflation in the first three years, which was about 38%. We also lost significant time due to the long delays caused by foot and mouth disease, threats by farmers not to comply with CPOs and archaeological surveys. There was an astronomical increase in costs from tender prices.