Mr. Frank O'Connor:

The Deputy is correct that the bond has raised €5 billion to date. We launched the inaugural green bond in October 2018, which raised €3 billion, and we then tapped it for a further €2 billion a year later, in October 2019. In fact, we had only intended to tap for €1 billion but we tapped the extra demand to which the Deputy referred for €2 billion. I would caution that there can sometimes be an element of overbidding in these matters. To look at the recent raising of the vanilla ten-year bond, there was demand for €60 billion. There is an element of overbidding because people know that we will scale back some of the orders. The genuine demand tends to be a little bit lower. The higher level of demand is not always genuine.

We are also conscious of allocations. As the Deputy will know, we have to allocate against eligible expenditure and look at the quantum of expenditure each calendar year. While there might be many projects in the future, we must ensure that investors are comfortable that we have projects against which to allocate. The likely pipeline of projects will allow us to launch more sovereign green bonds in the future. We are trying to strike a balance between investor demand, the pace of projects as they begin to be delivered, and looking ahead. We will do more in this area. I hope this gives the Deputy a little bit of the colour as to how these decisions are made.