Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

100. To ask the Minister for Finance the amount of proceeds from the Aer Lingus sale invested in the connectivity fund; the details of the projects that received investment to date from the fund; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [17359/17]

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

The Connectivity Fund was established as a sub-fund of the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) to invest the €335 million proceeds from the sale of the State's shareholding in Aer Lingus with the aim of enabling and enhancing Ireland's physical, virtual and energy connectivity.

The ISIF has completed the first two investments from this fund with a combined value of €57 million.

- ISIF announced a $25 million (circa. €22 million) equity investment in Aqua Comms DAC, the operator of Ireland's first dedicated subsea fibre-optic network. The cable lands in Killala County Mayo and interconnects New York, Dublin and London.  Aqua Comms is a provider of data connectivity and bandwidth infrastructure services for content providers, cloud-based networks, data centres, IT companies and the global media. Its network will be used by major multinational technology and telecoms companies to provide fast, secure data connections between Ireland, the US and UK and will enable the continued growth of the Irish digital economy.

- ISIF also rolled an existing (National Pensions Reserve Fund) commitment in daa plc's public bond, which was issued in 2008 (repayable in 2018), into a €35 million commitment in a new 2028 public bond issuance by daa, the operator of Dublin and Cork Airports. This continues ISIF's role as a long-term, strategic, domestic investor in daa. Given the nature of the underlying business of daa, and the fact that the new bond issuance provides long-term financing for the company, the ISIF commitment to the 2028 bond is considered suited to inclusion under the Connectivity Fund.

Several other Connectivity Fund investment opportunities are currently being assessed under the ISIF's "double bottom line" mandate, which is to seek both commercial return and economic impact. These connectivity opportunities include potential investments in energy, air, sea and further data connectivity projects and businesses seeking to expand and enhance Ireland's international links.