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

It is a good thing that the Deputy is nowhere near the standards of Deputy Mattie McGrath, who decides what his answer is going to be before I give my answer. I said that the essence of a green bond is that it is directed at particular types of projects we want to go ahead with, and that these are some of the types of projects a green bond might be able to fund. We can then explain to investors how their money is being used, including in areas such as clean transport and environmental projects. My only area of difference with the Deputy Eamon Ryan on this issue is that I believe we should be very careful about saying that we are going to issue a bond to fund individual projects, because we have already seen and are well aware of the challenges that can arise when the funding of very specific projects is mooted and the delays that can happen on those projects as a result. What the NTMA and the Government have done is more sensible. We have laid out broad indicators of the kinds of projects we would like a green bond to fund without being specific about the projects themselves. When we go to issue another green bond in the future we will have to show we have made this work, which of course is a different form of market discipline. Indeed, it is a form of market discipline of which I imagine the Deputy approves.

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