Ms Deirdre Fay:

I thank the Senator for his question about the horticulture crisis fund. The subsectors included under the scheme are: high-wire glasshouse-grown tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers; brown mushrooms; field vegetables and field-grown salad crops; energy-reliant protected crops; heated strawberries; and vertically grown greens and apples. The schemes is designed to ensure the short-term security and thus the long-term viability of these subsectors.

The Senator asked why some growers were left out of the scheme. At the spring Horticulture Industry Forum meeting, the Minister of State, Senator Hackett, called for growers to provide evidence of business viability. Based on that evidence, we built a business case we submitted under the EU agricultural reserve for further crisis support over and above what was provided last year under the horticulture exceptional payment scheme, HEPS. The evidence provided by the growers across the eligible sub-sectors demonstrated that they were loss making over the growing season. It was those growers who were included in the scheme. Effectively, the horticulture crisis fund is targeting growers whose economic viability is compromised as a result of the challenges. It is for that reason that white mushrooms and cold strawberries were not included in the scheme. Evidence-based analysis showed that those sub-sectors were showing a profit.