asked the Minister for Finance if he will list the projects of a capital infrastructure nature submitted to the authorities in support of Ireland's application for EMS transitional capital funds.
Written Answers. - Capital Infrastructure Projects.
78.
Under the measures decided by the European Council last December to strengthen the economies of the less prosperous member states participating in the European Monetary System, loans of up to £225 million per year from the European Investment Bank and the New Community Borrowing and Lending Instrument are being made available on special conditions to Ireland over a five-year period. Interest on these loans, which are to be concentrated on but not restricted to the financing of selected infrastructure projects and programmes is to be subsidised at a rate of 3 per cent per annum.
Immediately following the European Council's decision last December an accelerated programme of project submissions to the EIB was initiated in my Department in co-operation with both the other Departments concerned and State-sponsored bodies. Already loans amounting to £53 million have been signed with the bank by my Department and State-sponsored bodies this year. Further loans amounting to about £49 million are expected to be signed later this month. The remaining projects are being assessed as a priority by the bank with a view to sufficient loans being signed over the coming months to enable us to achieve the 1979 borrowing target required for us to avail of the full capitalised interest subsidies of £45 million in respect of the current year.
The Deputy will appreciate that the bank must apply its own banking criteria in an independent manner to the projects submitted. It would not, therefore, be appropriate for me to furnish a list of the projects which have not yet been signed.
I can, however, give details of the loans signed to date, as follows: ESB Aghada generating station, £10 million; Global loan to the Industrial Credit Company for small firms, £5 million; National telephones development, £18 million; National forestry development, £15 million; Water supply and sewerage schemes in Shannon area, £5 million. The details of the further loan signings due later this month will be publicised in a Departmental press release on the signing of the contracts.
In addition to the Community measures, Ireland is to receive bilateral loans and subsidies from a number of member states over a two-year period and in this connection I would refer the Deputy to my reply of 20 June to Question No. 7 tabled by Deputy John Horgan. (Dáil Official Report, Volume 315, columns 652-657).