Private investors in Ireland were only interested in Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) if they could "cherry-pick" the projects, if the taxpayer took all the risk, if the investor was guaranteed the contract and if they were given good financial terms on borrowing, according to the Taoiseach.
Mr Ahern said it was regrettable that Irish firms were not prepared to take the level of risk that people in other countries successfully took in their involvement in PPPs.
He never believed the private sector in 1999 when the PPP process was launched with the National Development Plan and the sector said that as soon as the contracts were given, private business would give the resources.
Mr Ahern said the private sector's level of participation was not high, unlike in other countries, and if they came into the process at all they wanted to cherry pick the projects for no risk at all.
The Taoiseach was responding to the Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny, who pointed to an IBEC study that 94 per cent of the lobby group's members believed that PPP progress was poor or very poor.
Mr Ahern said over the past four years, "not many companies were genuinely interested in PPPs".
A number of companies on the Continent who employed Irish staff and Irish consultants "would say that people here are not prepared to carry the kind of risk level people have to carry elsewhere. It is regrettable that people here are not prepared to do that."
The Department of Finance and the National Treasury Management Agency correctly believed that "the State can fund a cheaper project. The idea of mortgaging out a project over a period does not represent good value to the taxpayer and we are better off managing it by way of statutory borrowing."
Ministers would like to do more but "the deals available elsewhere are not available here".
More than 80 per cent of infrastructure is paid for by the taxpayer and the remainder through PPPs.
