Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

163. To ask the Minister for Finance the progress being made in securing funding for potential investment projects under the European Fund for Strategic Investments; the projects that have been approved for funding; the projects put forward to his Department for inclusion in their task force report to the EFSI; and his views on whether they are still in contention for funding. [4717/17]

Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

167. To ask the Minister for Finance the potential investment projects his Department put forward with regard to the task force report for the European Fund for Strategic Investments. [4865/17]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 163 and 167 together.

I take it that the Deputy is referring to the EU Commission - European Investment Bank -Member State Special Task Force to develop an Investment project pipeline for the EU in the Autumn of 2014.

The purpose of that exercise was to compile a list of potential investment projects across Member States, in order to quantify the investment need across the EU following the economic and financial crisis. The Task Force was constituted by the EU as an input to the development of the legislative proposal for the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI), subsequently launched in November of that year. 

Ireland, along with all other Member States, submitted a list of potential projects for inclusion in the Task Force's final report. That list which includes both public and private projects  was compiled by my Department in very close coordination with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform given their responsibility for controlling  public capital expenditure. The list was based on submissions from Departments with responsibility for particular sectors requiring investment, both public and private. The list, as noted by Government before submission, did not have any overall assessment or prioritisation of the projects and was not a national set of project applications. It was more accurately a contribution to an EU-wide scoping exercise to gauge the level of potential projects, during the 2015-2017 period, should investment resources become available.

The Task Force's final report was published in December 2014 and is available at .

Since EFSI's enactment in July 2015, it has been possible for any project promoter, either public or private, to engage with the EIB regarding the possibility of receiving loans or guarantees under EFSI for particular projects. In general, Government Departments have existing relationships with the EIB so it has been a matter for each Department concerned to advance the projects in coordination with the Government's Capital Plan as  coordinated by the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. My Department has no role in assessing projects either public or private which may be the subject of applications for EFSI loans/guarantees.

Since inception, Ireland has seen the main potential beneficiaries of EFSI as being in the private sector including entities such as PPP companies. In this regard, I am pleased that the Department of Health's Primary Health Care Centres PPP has successfully drawn down EFSI funds.  In addition, the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI) has successfully engaged with European Financial Instruments such as the COSME and the InnovFin Guarantee Programme, both of which are made available under the EFSI SME Window. These support the financing needs of SMEs and ensure that there is an adequate supply of affordable and appropriate credit to meet their needs.

In this way, EFSI is providing an important additional funding possibility alongside other possibilities such as the EIB's normal lending, the State's borrowings through the NTMA and other mechanisms such as PPPs and off-balance sheet vehicles. It should be remembered that each EFSI loan entered into by the State pre-commits funding for the repayment of such loans, and has to be considered in the context of the expenditure benchmark under the EU's fiscal rules.

I can inform the Deputy that there is a publicly available list of projects which have been approved for EFSI support by the EIB in the State which is available on the EIB website at: .

However, I would ask the Deputy to be aware that this list may not reflect Irish private sector project promoters participating in a project that could receive funding from EFSI loans/guarantees but which is led or based in another EU Member State.