Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I join the Deputy in publicly congratulating Deputy Griffin on joining me at the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. I am delighted at his appointment. I also thank Deputy Patrick O'Donovan for the work he did in the Department and congratulate him on his new role.

The European Fund for Strategic Investments is one of a number of European Investment Bank, EIB, and other financing options available to transport project promoters. There has been ongoing liaison with agencies under my remit on EU co-funding and financing options, including the EIB. My Department, in conjunction with the EIB, the European Commission and the Innovation Network Executive Agency, hosted an information day on 30 May 2017 for project promoters on funding opportunities from the Connecting Europe Facility and on EIB financing options, including EFSI. This follows a similar information session in 2015 that was also hosted by my Department. The objective of these information sessions was to raise awareness of EU co-funding and financing options for project promoters and to facilitate one to one discussions between the EU institutions and the project promoters.

The potential of Exchequer-funded projects to participate in EU co-funding and financing is subject to the spending constraints of the public finances. However, as part of its work on a mid-term review of the capital plan, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has set up a high-level group to provide the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform with an evidence-based analysis and recommendations on the future role of using public private partnerships, PPPs, as a procurement option in the delivery of capital infrastructure compared with traditional procurement methods. This will include an assessment of risks arising from traditional as compared with PPP procurement of large capital projects. Decisions on the financing aspects of public transport projects will take account of the outcome of this work.

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