Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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The authorities are anxious to proceed very quickly. It is known familiarly, as the Deputy knows, as the Juncker plan. Mr. Juncker, being the President, has a personal interest in advancing it quickly. The European Central Bank regards the investment programme as a very important parallel initiative to quantitative easing and believes that quantitative easing on its own would require an investment programme as well. I expect things to proceed very quickly after Tuesday's ECOFIN meeting. A national quota system is not applied to it. Initially, the timeframe was very short. We put in all the infrastructural projects which were available across different Departments and Government agencies. The next step for us is to prioritise and to select, from the very substantive list that was put in, the shovel-ready projects which would have most effect on growing our economy by providing essential infrastructure or by expanding on essential infrastructure. There is an indication that infrastructural projects with a trans-European relevance will be ones that continental Europe is interested in. However, it is possible to have analogous projects in a country such as Ireland which are compatible with the main thrust of the plan.

For example, if they proceed with the trans-European energy delivery project - that is not its correct name, but the Deputy understands what I mean - we could invest here in an energy project that would not necessarily be connected but would be geared to achieve similar objectives.