Strong demand for €1.5bn of projects

Ireland is again attracting considerable interest from foreign investors interested in pumping huge sums of money into infrastructural projects here.

Numerous international investors are courting nine live infrastructural projects totalling an aggregate capital value of €1.5bn, according to the head of National Development Finance Agency.

The surge in capital investment interest from overseas is another sign of the recovering economy and the country’s attractiveness, according to agency chief executive, Brian Murphy.

Commenting on the demand shown by foreign investment consortiums, Mr Murphy said the country is now being targeted from home and abroad.

“There has been a major transformation in appetite for Irish assets and Ireland has a healthy pipeline of quality infrastructure projects to meet this appetite.

“Investors, both domestic and international, are now actively targeting Ireland for major financing, construction and supply chain opportunities,” said Mr Murphy.

Currently, Mr Murphy added, investors are eyeing involvement in up to nine live projects in education, courts, health and transport. Multiple experienced consortiums submitted formal expressions of interest in those projects, he added.

Speaking at the “Financing Irish Infrastructure” conference in Dublin yesterday, Mr Murphy said the country’s changing demographics will require major investment across a range of sectors.

“Our growing population provides a solid underpinning of our need for social infrastructure, such as housing; health and education facilities.

These are areas where public-private partnerships (PPP) have a good track record and the Government has made it clear that private capital has a critical role to play in delivering our infrastructure needs,” he added.

The Government’s capital project infrastructure stimulus package totals €2.25bn of which phase one, the proposed PPP pipeline, amounts to €1.5bn to be spread across four sectors: education; health; justice and transport.

The agency is responsible for procuring three education PPPs; up to two in the health sector; and a further three in justice with the combined capital expenditure expected to be about €650m.

Separately, the National Roads Authority is responsible for procuring further PPPs to the value of €750m in the upgrade of the road system, with the development agency as financial advisor.

Established in 2003, the agency is the statutory financial advisor to state authorities on all public investment projects with a capital value over €20m.