THE EUROPEAN Investment Bank (EIB) provided a record €1.02 billion in loans to Ireland in 2009 and has agreed to lend up to €500 million to the Dublin metro.

The EIB’s Irish lending last year was more than double the €400 million to €450 million the bank normally provides annually in Ireland, as last year the financial crisis led to a shortage in credit supply.

The European Union’s lender made €260 million available to Irish small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through credit lines with Allied Irish Banks (AIB), Bank of Ireland and Ulster Bank, of which two-thirds have been drawn down.

Speaking ahead of a meeting with Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan in Dublin today, EIB vice-president Plutarchos Sakellaris said the bank would continue to provide at least its normal level of lending in Ireland.

Mr Sakellaris is also meeting Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan and Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey today.

The EIB would consider further funding for Irish SMEs, he said, describing the take-up of the credit already provided by the bank to firms as “satisfactory”.

The three banks could not provide the loans “overnight”, he said.

Mr Sakellaris said that Ireland was not unique in seeing a shortage of credit to SMEs.

The bank will continue to lend to transport, energy, and research and development projects, he said.

The EIB increased its lending to a record level in Ireland last year as it saw “a large pool of worthwhile, financially viable projects”.

“If, of course, there is a demand for loans and we are presented with appropriate projects, we stand ready to lend to sustainable, economically viable projects,” he said.

The EIB provided loans primarily to energy and infrastructural projects last year as financing for public-private projects became more difficult to secure.

The bank’s financing included €300 million provided for Eirgrid’s east-west interconnector, €300 million to the new terminal at Dublin airport and €200 million for ESB wind farms.

The EIB’s loans to the 19km Dublin Metro, which will run from Dublin city centre to Fingal via Dublin airport, will amount to 8 per cent of the project’s estimated €6 billion cost.

Mr Sakellaris said the bank was examining two other public-private partnership projects forming part of a western transport corridor between Cork, Limerick and Galway – the N17-N18 Gort to Tuam motorway and the motorway linking the Dublin-Limerick and Dublin-Wexford roads.

The EIB was still completing technical and feasibility appraisals of the projects and, if the conditions were met, agreements could be signed next year.

The bank, which is owned by the 27 EU member states, has provided loans of more than €5 billion for capital investment projects since 2000. Some 37 per cent related to energy projects, while 33 per cent concerned transport.

The bank increased its total lending to more than €79 billion in 2009, including €70.5 billion in EU member states, a 40 per cent increase on the previous year.