THE FINANCE MINISTER Michael Noonan has said that the president of the European Investment Bank is coming to Ireland next month with a view to trying to sort out Ireland’s infrastructure problems.
Speaking in Luxembourg today the minister said that the president will meet with he and Brendan Howlin in Dublin on 5 July to discuss ways of making funding available as part of European growth incentives and the enhancement of the EIB fund by €10 billion.
Noonan said that the money would be used to:
Separate the traffic at Newland’s Cross, to put the road down to Wexford, and the other one is Gort up to Tuam, and then there are bundles of schools, and then there are community health centres, we have a list.
He was speaking to reporters outside a meeting of EU finance ministers.
Michael Noonan also said that Ireland will not be following the lead of nine countries in implementing a financial transaction tax. He said that Ireland already has a stamp duty on share transactions of one per cent – that’s half a per cent higher than the UK. The minister said Ireland is not prepared to go beyond that point at the moment.
According to the treaty the financial transaction tax can go ahead if nine countries want it, but only if there’s no impact on the internal market and it doesn’t adversely affect other countries.
The minister said that Ireland has made no moves to block those countries who support the tax.
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