The Irish National Pensions Reserve Fund has decided to plough €500m ($675m) into infrastructure projects, the latest substantial commitment to the asset class from a major European pension plan.

The investment, which amounts to about 2% of the fund's €20.8bn in assets, will be put into multi-billion dollar international infrastructure funds such as those run by Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, or the Australian groups Macquarie and Babcock & Brown.