Patrick Costello (Dublin South Central, Green Party)
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114. To ask the Minister for Finance the number of Israeli national bonds held by the Central Bank of Ireland; the total value and the yearly breakdown (both purchased in that year and total owned in number of bonds and euro value) for the past ten years, in tabular form. [38637/24]

Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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I have been informed by the Central Bank that they held approximately €17bn of Investment Assets at the end of 2023, mostly invested in government bonds and other high-quality fixed income (bond) instruments issued by multilateral development banks, supranational organisations and government-linked agencies.

The Central Bank of Ireland does not directly invest in Israeli government bonds.

Since 2021, the Central Bank has participated in the US dollar- and euro-denominated green bond investment funds for central banks established by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The Central Bank owns a share of some USD 98m equivalent (approximately EUR 88m) in the US dollar fund, which invests in green bonds from qualifying issuers. Overall, the Central Bank’s holdings of the BIS US dollar green bond fund account for around 0.5% of its total Investment Assets. All of the fund’s investments are financing or re-financing eligible projects, with clear environmental or climate-related benefits.

The fund is designed such that investors (such as the Central Bank of Ireland) hold claims on the fund issuer (i.e. the BIS) according to the fund units that they own. Exposure to individual bonds, therefore, is indirect in nature.

While individual bond-level allocations within the BIS green bond fund are not made publicly available by the BIS, regional allocations at the latest reporting date (30 August 2024) suggest that most issuers reside in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas or are supranational entities. Exposures to Israel within the BIS green bond fund were part of an allocation of around 2% to ‘Other’ regions.