Seán Kyne (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Ms Nolan to this meeting and thank her for her presentation. The Chairman has raised a few seminal issues. On the multiplier effect, we must bear in mind that it is not a question of more than €300 billion being available, which sounds like a huge pot of money, albeit to be spread across the European Union. I have some concerns about the mathematics behind that.

Ms Nolan referred to a dedicated committee and I ask her to explain how the projects will be assessed. Will there be quotas for different countries or will they be chosen irrespective of the country of origin? The Chairman referred to regional concerns. Under previous funding for transport, for example, there was a cross-border condition attached to funding. Obviously, on the mainland of Europe, road and rail networks would often traverse several different countries but that is not the case here, apart from our attachment to one part of the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland. Will that impact on the level of funding that will be available to us?

Ms Nolan also mentioned that the investment fund would be open to projects not funded by the EIB. What type of projects is she referring to in that regard? She mentioned a number of areas that I would have thought would be eligible for EIB funding.

Are there specific projects that have not been funded by the EIB that this new funding model will be able to take up?