Mr. Andrew McDowell:

There are special funds in the EU budget for cross-border projects. There used to be TEN-T and now there is the Connecting Europe Facility, CEF. We co-operate very closely with the Commission in using these funds, where perhaps the Commission provides grant aid to a project and we provide debt on top of the grant aid. We liaise very closely with the Commission in the deployment of these funds. To my recollection, but this is a matter to be confirmed by the European Commission, there was special recognition for Ireland in the CEF to recognise the fact it has less potential for cross-border projects because of having fewer land borders. There was a special allocation for Ireland, whereby projects could be part financed with grant aid from the European Commission if it could be justified, for example, as a road that led to a port that led to another European country. I believe there were some special recognition of this but I can come back and confirm it.