Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 21 July 2016

Public Accounts Committee

2014 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Chapter 2 - Government Debt
Chapter 24 - Accounts of the National Treasury Management Agency
National Treasury Management Agency Financial Statements 2015

9:00 am

Mr. Conor O'Kelly:

Yes. Hopefully, the opportunities will keep coming. I do not see any sign of the pipeline slowing for the moment. There are 60 plus opportunities in the pipeline now, what we call our live pipeline, that we are considering. As long as the quality of proposals keeps coming through with co-investment, I would be comfortable that we will probably keep the pace, certainly for the next 12 months, with that which we had for the last 12 months, and the pipeline looks very good. There is a capacity question, which is a separate legitimate question, that many have been asking, namely, given the size of the Irish economy, can it take the size of the strategic investment fund investment? For us, the strategic investment fund can grow the envelope of the economy in total rather that it replacing, displacing or being additional to projects or money that is still in the system.