Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party)
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131. To ask the Minister for Finance his views on the reported plans by his Department to make €200 million available to property developers from the National Pension Reserve Fund. [24575/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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As you are aware on the 22 December 2014, the National Pensions Reserve Fund transitioned to the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) which has a statutory mandate to invest on a commercial basis to support economic activity and employment in Ireland.  

The investment strategy of the ISIF has been adopted by the Board of the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA) following the appropriate consultation with both myself and my colleague the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform. I can advise that the ISIF will develop a broad based portfolio across a number of sectors including, but not limited to, infrastructure, energy, water, real estate, housing, tourism, food & agriculture, technology, healthcare and finance.

While the ISIF's investment strategy is consistent with Government's policy objectives, the NTMA are responsible for the management of the ISIF and pursuant to the National Treasury Management Agency (Amendment) Act 2014, an Investment Committee has been established that has discretion to make investment and disposal decisions in accordance with the ISIF investment strategy.

It is important that the ISIF has a commercial mandate and operates at arm's-length in terms of specific investment decisions in order for ISIF to be successful in leveraging its resources by attracting private sector co-investment. This is essential to maximise the resources in the funds, to create jobs and to recycle the funds for future generations.

The ISIF have advised me that they do not comment on their pipeline of proposed investments but that they are ready to invest on a commercial basis across the economy in accordance with their mandate, including in the real estate sector.  ISIF will make announcements in relation to investment decisions at the appropriate time.