To ask the Minister of Finance (i) why, in the June Monitoring Round, £25m of Financial Transaction Capital (FTC) was replaced with £25m of grant funding for the new Ulster University, Belfast campus; and (ii) how much of the original £25m of FTC was originally expected to be paid back to the Executive, either through loan repayments or equity investments.

While the original intention was to provide £126 million of FTC, the Department for the Economy (DfE) has now made a case for providing £25 million as a capital grant now, with the remainder provided as a FTC loan.

Both the grant funding and the loan are subject to the outcome of the appraisal process. Therefore the £25m capital grant allocation is ring-fenced funding and which will only be provided to the Ulster University once the appraisal has been successfully completed.

The FTC loan will be repayable over a 30 year period, with a five year capital repayment moratorium, at a rate of 0.25%.