Mr. Andrew McDowell:

It comes down to the time saving, the value of that time saving by traffic forecasts and whether it justifies, taking into account the cost of capital over time, the initial outlay on the project. It is not rocket science but we have significant internal debates in the banks. Occasionally, we must reject projects on the economic appraisal, although they may be credit-worthy. We may lend to a creditworthy borrower, such as the Irish Government, but the economic appraisal may not justify the project. That is why the EIB is trusted by its shareholders in these matters. We do not finance bridges to nowhere or infrastructure for its own sake. It will only come about where there has been a very positive appraisal.

If, for example, the Irish Government indicated it would be interested in this project with off-balance sheet financing for public private partnership structures, we would then go through a further process, working out whether it is just availability risk that we are being asked to finance - in other words, the construction - or would it be availability and traffic risk under a tolling scenario. In those circumstances, we would want to understand what the tolling would be and if it justifies the risk if we accept part of the risk? What we have indicated to the Irish Government is that before making final decisions on the best financing approach and the choices it must make for the mid-term review of the capital programme, there should be a preliminary exchange of information with the EIB. It may be that we can look at a project, find it interesting and potentially finance it through some novel, off-balance sheet mechanism, whether it is through availability public private partnership with a unitary payment or through a full demand-risk public private partnership financed by tolling, where we guarantee private investors against some of the downside traffic forecasts.