Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Responsibility for policy on the Stability and Growth Pact rests with my colleague, the Minister for Finance. Both the Minister for Finance and I visited the European Investment Bank, EIB, in Luxembourg last week on 23 and 24 May 2017 and met with a large delegation of EIB officials led by President Werner Hoyer and Vice President Andrew McDowell. The purpose of our visit was to review progress in the ongoing discussions between the Irish authorities and the EIB taking place in sub-groups under the auspices of the Ireland-EIB financing group, which was established last year to explore possible ways for Ireland to access additional EIB funding for necessary projects.  This was the second meeting of the financing group following its inaugural meeting in Dublin in December 2016. We had a wide-ranging discussion on the capital and infrastructural needs of the Irish economy and the key issues that arise in trying to address these needs. These include the limited fiscal space within which the Government must operate, the threats posed by Brexit and the assessment of priorities for additional funding that is currently under way as part of the mid-term review of the capital plan.

The EIB has now presented some suggestions on how the bank could provide new and innovative financing mechanisms for assisting small businesses and tackling infrastructure needs in ways that could prove useful to the Irish authorities in grappling with these issues. We have agreed a number of next steps. We will explore potential financing options for delivering metro north, drawing on the EIB's knowledge and experience of financing similar projects elsewhere. There is an agreement to engage in exploratory discussions on the EIB's knowledge and experience of different user-pay PPP or concession type models without prejudice to decisions we might make later in the year on particular projects. It was agreed, partly regarding mitigating the impacts of Brexit, to explore the potential for the EIB to become involved in funding a scheme to provide access to the enterprise and agriculture sectors. Follow-up meetings on all of those topics have now taken place.

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