Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree in principle with the Deputy. A European fund is targeted at investment across the European Union to improve competitiveness and increase economic activity. That is the whole point of the Juncker plan. Ireland has an infrastructural deficit. We have been unable to afford to spend the kind of money that we would like to have spent over the past seven or eight years. The previous Government faced the same challenges.

As our economy recovers, and as tax revenues improve and the tightness of the fiscal constraints within which we have to operate loosen, undoubtedly that will mean increased expenditure on targeted capital projects. Access to money is not the problem, whether it involves the EIB, private investors or equity funds. The challenge is being able to spend money under the fiscal rules. Borrowing money is not an expensive business for a Government. Being able to spend it under the rules we have signed up to is the challenge. That is why PPPs are potentially a very useful mechanism to put in place commercial investments, along with private sector interests. We are considering the ways in which can be facilitated.

It is also probably true to say that the cost of PPPs today is significantly less than it might have been ten or 15 years ago in terms of the cost of finance. There is some merit to what the Deputy has said. Ultimately, it will be a decision for the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform.

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