Mr. John Hogan:

We need to look at the government structures which are being suggested around this. We are at early stages in terms of the negotiation around the European fund for strategic investment. I can tell the Deputy, based on the regulation that has been published, that a steering committee, consisting of the European Commission, the EIB and other participants, for example, from member states, is to be put in place. There will also be an investment committee which will include market experts and a managing director and will assess the projects from an investment perspective. The investment guidelines have yet to be determined and drafted. As we understand it from the early stages of the negotiation on the regulation, they will be drafted by the steering committee when in place. At that stage, it will be possible to make a more sensible assessment of what is being done in terms of the approach by the investment committee.

It is fair to say that the EIB has been involved in this particular venture over a long number of years. The European Investment Fund has previously looked at taking first-loss pieces and has been able to unlock valuable private sector investment in projects in Europe for a number of years. As Mr. Petris said there is to a certain extent a fairly safe track record at Europe level in some of the approaches that are being suggested in this regard. It is an attempt by the Commission, taking account of the dearth of investment in Europe over the past number of years, to find some mechanism to unlock it against what we still see as a background of economic uncertainty.