State fund to invest €500m in five regional cities

The Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF) has unveiled plans to invest €500 million in the State’s five regional cities — Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Kilkenny — with a focus on creating new places to work and live while regenerating the city centres.

The State investment fund, which is part of the National Treasury Management Agency, has a mandate to invest to support economic activity and employment.

It said the investments would also “focus on scaling-up successful start-up businesses” to reach €1 billion unicorn valuations within five years.

“While ISIF’s statutory mandate to invest for a commercial return in investments that support economic activity and investment in Ireland remains unchanged, the focus of the new strategy will be on long-term transformational investments addressing key strategic challenges facing the country,” it said, noting these include climate action, housing and enabling infrastructure, scaling indigenous businesses, and food and agriculture.

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The strategy will also see ISIF fund the delivery of 25,000 new homes across Ireland by 2030 through a range of equity and debt investments. This follows on from a previous commitment to invest €950 million in housing to deliver 16,000 new homes in the coming years.

“We are planning a material step-up in our regional investments with a new initiative to unlock the economic potential of our five regional cities by backing transformational projects in each,” ISIF director Nick Ashmore said.

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“This programme will generate economic benefits, supporting employment and making Ireland a more sustainable, competitive and attractive place both for the people who live here and the employers who can create jobs for them,” he said.

ISIF also has plans to invest €1 billion in transformational climate action investments that will support the Republic’s transition to a net zero low-carbon economy.

Welcoming the announcement, Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe said he was pleased to see that a cornerstone of the strategy is a €500 million city-specific investment programme to unlock the full economic potential of Ireland’s five regional cities of Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and Kilkenny.