The Taoiseach’s former chief economic advisor Andrew McDowell has taken up his role as Vice-President with the European Investment Bank.
He is the first Irish member of the bank’s management committee for 12 years.
Mr McDowell had been advising Enda Kenny on economic issues since 2011. Prior to working for the Taoiseach, he was chief economist at Forfas and was European Deputy Editor at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
When it emerged in July that Mr Kenny had appointed his economic advisor to the €275,000 EIB jobs, the Toiseach was heavily criticised here from opposition politicians.
At the time, Mr Kenny said the Government agreed to appoint Mr McDowell to the position, which becomes available to Ireland as well as three other countries every number of years.
The Cabinet approved the nomination of Mr McDowell following a process that saw five candidates interviewed and three names presented to Minister for Finance Michael Noonan.
Mr Kenny said that his experience of Mr McDowell as economic advisor in the Department of the Taoiseach was as "a truly outstanding person and more than capable”.
The EIB, the EU's bank which is based in Luxembourg, is the largest multilateral borrower and lender by volume and its policy is to provide favourable loans for sustainable investment projects in line with EU policy.
Ireland is entitled to one of the positions at the EIB which rotate between it, Denmark, Greece and Romania.
