Dublin's Metro Funding Boosted

There's to be a significant European contribution to a huge Dublin infrastructure project.

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has agreed in principle to pay up to €500m to the Dublin Metro project.

The planned Metro would provide a 19-kilometre link from Dublin city centre, via Dublin airport, to Fingal and is seen by the bank as a key infrastructure project for Ireland.

It is also examining two other public-private partnership projects in Ireland which would form part of a second western transport corridor between Cork, Limerick and Galway.

These are the N17-N18 Gort to Tuam motorway link and the N11-N7 motorway, two projects highlighted in the €2bn Irish National Roads Authority second roads PPP programme.

At the moment, the Bank is still completing the technical and feasibility appraisals of these projects. If conditions are met, agreements could be signed in the next year.

Representatives of the bank are meeting the Finance Minister Brian Lenihan for talks on this and other matters, including the availability of credit for businesses.

In 2009 the EIB made €260m available to Irish SMEs through credit lines with Allied Irish, Bank of Ireland and Ulster Bank.

Vice-President of the EIB Plutarchos Sakellaris confirmed that two-thirds of this had already been disbursed to Irish SMEs.

He described this as a satisfactory level of uptake and confirmed that further funding for Irish SMEs would be considered: "Although challenges remain we expect lending momentum to increase in the coming months, and a further small and medium-enterprise loan is likely to be finalised later this year," Mr Sakellaris said.

(BMcC/GK)