UL secures €100m loan for campus developments

“Many thousands” of construction jobs will be created in Limerick over the next five years in a major investment deal agreed between the board of the European Investment Bank and the University of Limerick.

The EIB has approved a €100m loan to UL for campus developments, university president Don Barry announced yesterday.

The loan will also go towards supporting the university’s €200m capital investment programme, including the construction of new pharmaceutical and engineering facilities, and also a clinical medical research unit at the University Hospital Limerick in Dooradoyle.

The plan also includes developing a team-training centre for Munster Rugby, Prof Barry confirmed.

“Munster Rugby are going to make their training base here, and we have to provide them with the standards they require.”

Prof Barry said there “will be many thousands of construction jobs, but I can’t put a precise figure on it at this time. We still have to work out the schedule of what’s achievable in the short-term, medium-term and long-term”.

He described the approval of the loan facility as “an endorsement of the University and of Limerick City”.

“We have a plan which includes enhanced facilities here on the [main] campus, but perhaps even more significantly, new facilities at the University Hospital Limerick, and most exciting of all, the realisation of this plan will make a major contribution to the regeneration of the city-centre of Limerick, with a substantial enhanced visible presence of the University down there [the city].”