Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party)
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80. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the steps that his Department is taking to ensure that Ireland harnesses the potential of the Connecting Europe Facility fund which will make €5.12 billion available for projects to help increase the sustainability of the transport network, including rail infrastructure; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46323/22]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for Transport is an EU funding programme that aims to develop and complete the trans-European transport (TEN-T) network, with 60% of the budget to be allocated to projects that support the EU's climate objectives.

CEF funding comes in the form of co-funding grants that are awarded via competitive calls. Calls are open to projects across the EU and are usually heavily oversubscribed. Co-funding rates differ depending on the conditions of each call but for Irish projects these typically range from 30% to 50% of eligible costs.

The CEF Transport 2022 funding call was launched by the EU Commission on 13 September. It has an overall budget of €5.12 billion which is divided into a number of separate calls focused on various funding priorities.

The total budget of the calls for which Irish projects are eligible is €2.47 billion. The areas covered by these calls include: railways, maritime ports, roads, freight terminals, infrastructure resilience, transport information systems, and passenger hubs.

We circulated information on the call by email to our CEF mailing list on 13 September. The Department's twitter account published a series of tweets on the call on the same date. We have also updated the gov.ie information page on CEF and TEN-T (www.gov.ie/en/publication/331b18-trans-european-network-for-transport-ten-t-and-connecting-europe-fac/) with relevant information and links.

These communications all include a registration link for the EU's virtual information day on the call which will take place on 5 October. My Department also intends to hold its own information day for Irish stakeholders in October, we expect to be able to confirm the exact date soon.

The Department is required to endorse any applications from Ireland and my officials aim to review and provide feedback to all applicants on their proposals. To facilitate this process, we have set deadlines by which information should be submitted to us. These deadlines are available on the gov.ie information page on CEF and TEN-T.

My officials have already engaged with a number of prospective Irish applicants, including Irish Rail, on the funding opportunities available under this year's CEF call. Officials in the Department remain available to provide information on the call to anyone considering making an application.