Budget 2022: McGrath pledges €50m of €500 Shared Island Unit spend next year and welcomes €1bn PEACE PLUS pot

The fund, first announced in Budget 2021, is a €500 million multiannual pot of capital for investment on strategic North/South projects to 2025.

In his Budget 2022 speech this afternoon Mr. McGrath said: "This government continues to progress the Shared Island initiative and to deepen cooperation and connection across the island, underpinned by the Good Friday Agreement.

"To match the scale of our ambition to deliver for the people of the island through all-island partnerships, the Government is allocating €50 million to the Shared Island Fund to advance key projects in 2022 and will commit to a total of €500 million to this fund out to 2025."

He said he was equally pleased to have secured support for a new €1 billion tranche of European peace money.

"I am particularly pleased that we have secured EU and UK support for a special new PEACE PLUS programme with a total value of €1 billion that will build on and continue the work of previous PEACE and INTERREG programmes," he said.

Deputy McGrath said he expected further monies to be extended to Ireland in order to cope with the fall out of Brexit.

"The lifetime of this Government will see Ireland mark fifty years of membership of the European Union. Our membership has played an important role in Ireland’s social, economic and political development in the intervening five decades.

"Throughout that period we have benefitted from the solidarity that comes with EU membership. This solidarity has never been more evident than in the Brexit negotiations.

"Ireland will receive just over €1 billion of funding from the Brexit Adjustment Reserve, the biggest single allocation for any Member State, representing just over 20 per cent of the total fund. As the Member State most impacted by Brexit, we will use this funding to help counter the adverse economic and social consequences of Brexit in areas such as enterprise supports; supports for the fisheries and agri-food sectors, reskilling and retraining; and checks and controls at our ports and airports.

"At the heart of NextGenerationEU is the Recovery and Resilience Facility under which Ireland will receive almost €1 billion in EU funding. The overall objective of our National Recovery and Resilience Plan is to contribute to a sustainable, equitable, green and digital recovery.

"Ireland will receive a total of €1.3 billion in Cohesion Policy funding for the period 2021 to 2027 period. National match funding will mean Structural Funds programmes with a total value of almost €3.5 billion," he said, speaking in the Dáil this afternoon.