Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

The purpose of this amendment is to increase the level of CIE's guaranteed borrowing power from €317 million to €600 million. The current borrowing limit was set by the Transport Act 1985 and has been in place for 20 years. This increased borrowing limit will allow the speedier progression of management of projects by providing additional cash flow facilities. While the investment programme outlined under Transport 21 will be funded by the Exchequer and private funding, as a commercial body, CIE should be provided with adequate borrowing levels to fund projects from its own resources. It is doing quite an amount of that at present.

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