The European Commission has unveiled a €220 billion investment plan for transport and research projects, including improved road and rail links between Cork, Dublin and Belfast.
A "motorway of the sea" between Ireland and Spain is also included.
The Commission wants to increase the EU contribution to the cost of the projects from 10 per cent to 30 per cent and to make €100 billion available in loans from the European Investment Bank.
A spokesman for the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, welcomed the proposal, which could reduce by more than €2 billion the cost to the State of improving the road and rail network.
"It is extremely welcome and encouraging that these key projects are included but there is some disappointment that the road/rail corridor between Dublin and the west of Ireland failed to make it on to the list," he said.
Yesterday's proposals may not be enough, however, to ease the strain placed on the State's finances by infrastructure projects. The Government would like the cost of such projects to be deducted from the calculation of its budget deficit under eurozone rules but these proposals do not involve such a change.
Work has already begun on improving road and rail links between Cork, Dublin and Belfast, which form part of the National Development Plan. These links, along with the corridor between Dublin and the west, were identified as priorities by an EU report on the trans-European transport network earlier this year.
The report also recommended the creation of a "motorway of the sea" between the Irish Sea and the Iberian peninsula, aimed at moving freight traffic from land to sea.
The plan, which is among the projects backed by the Commission yesterday, would reduce customs bureaucracy, improve port facilities and encourage the emergence of new ferry companies.
Announcing the plan yesterday, the president of the Commission, Mr Romano Prodi, said that it could boost economic growth in Europe by up to 1 per cent and could create 400,000 new jobs a year. "Decisions must be taken quickly. If we continue to take seriously our commitment to turn the European Union into the most competitive, knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010, we cannot waste a single month waiting for a miracle to happen," he said.
EU leaders will discuss the initiative when they meet in Brussels later this month but finance ministries in some European capitals signalled yesterday that the plan was unlikely to receive support.
Member-states which are net contributors to the EU budget are especially wary of the proposal to triple the level of direct EU aid to the projects. Environmentalists criticised the inclusion of a project to build a bridge between Sicily and mainland Italy, which they believe would hurt wildlife in the region.
The Green group in the European Parliament criticised as self-serving the Commission's inclusion of an improved rail link between Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg, the three seats of the EU institutions.