State projects - Cost overruns poor value for taxpayers

WITH an aggregate overrun of almost €7.5 billion on planned infrastructural projects, it is self-evident that there is something radically wrong in the current system of costing and evaluating major State ventures.

The level of cost overruns has been revealed by the Enterprise Strategy Group Report, which also points out that substantial amounts of the National Development Plan will not be delivered by 2006.

It is a euphemism, in the first place, to describe such a massive escalation of those costs as an "overrun," because they equate with about three-quarters of the budget allocated to the Department of Health.