Looking at public goods from a theoretical aspect, public goods are those goods and services where the government takes the responsibility for supplying them directly. Such a step is taken in an economy such as ours when, to allow market forces to provide them, would present society with potentially high costs to society itself and to individuals.

So, we would always expect the government to provide services related to law and order such as the police force and the administration of justice, the provision of street lighting, the building of roads, and so on, rather than allowing such services to be supplied through the price mechanism and the private sector.

In practical terms a number of issues come into play. Whereas in the case of the administration of justice it is widely accepted that the government provides such a service, when it comes to other goods and services a divergence of views emerges, as to whether the state or the free market is best able to realise the maximum benefit to society and to the individual.

Therefore, which goods and services are to be continued to be provided by the government and which goods and services are to be provided by the private sector, whose primary motive is profit maximisation, is a subject of continuous debate.

Over the years there have been a number of services that have shifted from the public sector domain to the private sector domain. For example, airports used to be managed exclusively by the state, while, nowadays, most of the primary airports in Europe are owned and managed by the private sector. Then there are services where the debate is even harsher. For example, in the UK, the provision of water services in certain parts of the country is in the private sector domain, while in other countries this service is still controlled by the public sector.

A corollary to this is that in the provision of certain goods and services, the state still assumes the responsibility to provide them directly itself, but it has also allowed the private sector to provide it at a charge.

Two appropriate examples are health and education. In Malta education is provided by the state free of charge from the pre-primary level right up to University level, while there are a number of privately owned and controlled entities that deliver educational services, even those of a compulsory nature.

The same applies to health, where the government provides institutional and primary health care free of charge, while there are also private sector entities that do that for a charge. Thus health and education are considered in Mata as "public goods", but they are not provided exclusively by the state.

In this case the price mechanism works, because we, as consumers, are in a position to decide whether to use the public sector provider or the private sector provider and what monetary value we would wish to attach to the service given by the public sector provider.

Apart from the issue as to which goods and services are to be recognised as "public goods" and which should not, there is also the issue as to whether the state should exercise any regulatory role over the provision of those goods and services that were once within the domain of the public sector. For example, telecommunications used to be considered a "public good".

It is now no longer considered to be so. The extent of competition that there is in this field has rendered any consideration of costs to society and individuals as completely irrelevant. However, even if telecommunication services are no longer considered as public goods, where does the government's role as regulator begin and where does it end?

However, perhaps the hottest issue that we have today is the funding of "public goods". These are never really free as they are paid out of taxes collected by the government. So we do end up paying for them. Moreover, in certain instances the government also charges for some services that it provides. For example, if one presents a court case seeking some form of redress of a civil nature, one is required to pay court fees at the start of the case. Thus the administration of justice is not really 100 per cent free for those that require to use such a service.

The debate that one needs to go into further is the extent to which "public goods" should be funded totally out of taxpayers' funds. In other words, although there will always be some services that would remain in the domain of the public sector, should such services be paid for (partially or totally) by the direct users or should they be funded indirectly by the taxes that each and everyone of us pays?

It is not a question that has an easy answer, as each case would need to be analysed on its own merits, especially since usage of such services does not always necessarily reflect a real need.

I strongly believe that any abuse in the usage of "public goods" needs to be eradicated, but I also believe that those services that up to now have been provided free of charge to the user should remain so.