John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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1818. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the timeline for the next ports capital grant allocations; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25953/16]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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​In March 2013 a new National Ports Policy was published which is available from my Department's website. This document outlines a roadmap for the sector's future development.  With regard to future investment, there is no Exchequer funding available for port infrastructure development. This is settled Government policy, as is stated in the National Ports Policy, the individual port companies must fund development proposals themselves without recourse to the Exchequer with funding to be sourced from a mixture of a company's own reserves, bank debt and/or potential other sources, or for example, EU funding.

The trans-European transport network (TEN-T) is the master plan for a comprehensive transport infrastructure development throughout the European Union. Subject to certain criteria, EU funding is available for Core and Comprehensive TEN-T ports in Ireland through the EU funding instrument Connecting Europe Facility (CEF). CEF for Transport  aims at supporting investments in building new transport infrastructure in Europe or rehabilitating and upgrading the existing one.

Co-funding under the CEF is delivered in the form of grants allocated following competitive calls for proposals. Irish port companies have been successful in obtaining approx. €43m of co  funding under CEF towards their development projects since 2013. It is expected that the next call will be open for new applications by the first week in October this year.

Additionally the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) is an initiative launched jointly by the European Investment Bank (EIB) Group and the European Commission to help overcome the current investment gap in the EU by mobilising private financing for strategic investments. Dublin Port successfully secured €100m in loan financing from the EIB in 2015 and a number of other port companies have been in talks with the European Investment Bank exploring financing options.