merrion street

Minister Noonan with President of the EIB, Werner Hoyer, at the press conference today

Finance Minister Michael Noonan and Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin today held a press conference following their meeting with officials from the European Investment Bank.

Minister Noonan said:

A number of specific announcements of projects involving EIB investment have been made over the past few days and, as we set out to the board of the EIB today, there is a strong pipeline of commercially viable projects in Ireland.

It was clear from today’s meeting that the EIB are very interested in investing in traditional infrastructure projects, directly in SME’s and in other private companies and  officials in the Department of Finance, Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and the EIB will continue to work together to find innovative funding solutions. President Hoyer will give you more details on this.

Transport Minister Leo Varadkar today announced that the EIB has agreed to provide 50% of the project debt of approx. €120m for the N11/Newlands Cross Public Private Partnership (PPP) road. The Bank of Ireland is the other co-funder for the project.

Minister Howlin welcomed the announcement that the road has been signed off on by all partners and that work will now begin on this important project.

This project will add to the stock of economic infrastructure in the State and will create and sustain important jobs in the construction sector.

Minister Howlin said

I am very pleased that we have achieved sign off on the latest roads project to be delivered using the Public Private Partnership model. This is an important PPP which encompasses two projects.

The N11 Arklow / Rathnew Scheme will form part of the N11 Rosslare to Dublin route and is also part of Euro-route E1. The scheme also incorporates the upgrade of the N7 Newlands Cross Junction. More specifically the scheme comprises the following separate elements:

Read the full press release here.