Ms Eibhl?n N? Mhunghaile:

I will take the question on the guarantee fund. The guarantee fund was launched in 2016 for the cultural and creative sectors. It proved to be very successful. It was operated by the EIF and additional funding was provided on two different occasions. In the end the final amount that was allocated to it was €258 million. It was expected that approximately €2.5 billion would be leveraged through that fund. It was a guarantee fund guaranteeing bank loans or loans from other financial institutions. Unfortunately, although we had briefed the Irish banks on multiple occasions and we also had a briefing with the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, SBCI, there was a focus particularly on Brexit at that time and no Irish bank or financial intermediary participated. However, there were a number of banks in Europe and some Irish projects, particularly on the audiovisual side, were supported through the French banks, with which we do a lot of business anyway.

Since the most recent programme ended in 2020, that financial instrument has moved into InvestEU and is no longer part of Creative Europe. There are 14 different sectors covered within InvestEU and one is devoted to the cultural and creative sectors. It is no longer in Creative Europe and we do not have a remit to promote it anymore. However, next week at the Cannes Film Festival it is due to launch another instrument called Media Invest. It is different from the guarantee fund of the latest programme, which was aimed at bank loans. This will be about equity investment. It will be to support SMEs to access equity investment by having a similar leveraging fund available. We do not have the detail of that because it is due to be launched next week, but once it is launched we hope to promote it in Ireland and to deal with different agencies involved with equity investment, such as Enterprise Ireland and the Western Development Commission. Of course, we also liaise with Screen Ireland and Screen Producers Ireland.