Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 14 January 2015
137. Deputy Tom Fleming asked the Minister for Finance if he will include the Shannon LNG project on the Government's submission for European Investment Bank funding as the proposed LNG terminal in Tarbert, County Kerry would substantially increase security and diversity of energy supply and provide direct access to competitive gas supplies which are crucial for our economic recovery; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [49560/14]
View answerThe Shannon LNG terminal project mentioned in the Deputy's question was included in the project list submitted by Ireland in response to the request from the EIB/Commission/Member State Task Force and is included in the Task Force's final report. The report can be found at the following website address - www.eib.org/invest-eu.
For background Ireland's EIB Task Force's project list was the result of coordination between my Department, the Department of Public Expenditure and the Departments with responsibility for public expenditure in the investment sectors specified in the Task Force's Terms of Reference. We have relied on Departments and agencies with direct policy responsibility as the source of all the projects that have been included in Ireland's input to the EU wide project list.
The Irish project list is part of an EU wide request from the Task Force to gauge the level of available projects in the period 2015-2017 should investment resources be found. The project list is only a cross section of available projects that could commence between 2015 and 2017. The list does not involve prioritisation and does not bestow any special status on the projects themselves.
In the case of public capital expenditure, it is still a matter for the Departments concerned to advance those projects in accordance with the Capital programme and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. As of now, there is no extra funding available beyond the allocations agreed at Budget time and published in the Comprehensive Expenditure Report 2015-2017. It is also important to acknowledge that the current rules of the Stability and Growth Pact mean that even if additional resources were to become available whether they could be used for additional expenditure would depend on the impact of that expenditure on our expenditure limits and the GGB, while how they could be used would depend on competing expenditure priorities.
