Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Each year, the vast majority of participants in the ANC scheme are paid in the calendar year but some cannot establish eligibility until the end of the year so payment is delayed until the following year. Some €9 million of the payments that have issued to date in the 2017 budget was used to pay successful applicants who established their entitlement from 2016 so there is a roll-over. The €4.5 that is being provided for now is to pay people who have carried over liability from a previous year and established their entitlement at a later stage. There are stocking density requirements, retention periods and such that have to be met for ANC. Some people establish their entitlements at a later stage. Last year, for people who established their eligibility for the 2016 payment in 2017, there was a provision of €9 million, and this year the requirement is for €4.5 million in roll-over.

No decisions have been made about the loan scheme and interest rate yet. A decision was made on the scheme that is available for small and medium enterprises, SMEs, which will be at a 4% interest rate. The variables that will decide the size of the loan fund will include the terminal loan and the interest rate that is charged. We will be trying to draw on the lessons of the last scheme for the loan scheme for fishermen and farmers next year. Is there something to be gained from pitching the interest rate at a different level that will encourage the banks to compete as well? A lesson that could be learned from the last scheme was that, at the interest rate of 2.95%, banks just did not compete. Outside of the pillar banks that were used by the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, SBCI, was there an opportunity if it had been pitched slightly higher to draw in more competition from other sectors? There is a suggestion that, at that rate of interest, other banks outside of those involved in administering it would not compete. All those decisions on the interest rate have yet to be made.

I welcome the Deputy's comments on Bord Bia. From my own engagement with it, it is putting its time to good use, seeking out new market opportunities, working with companies and so on.

On the fodder crisis, as I discussed in Dáil, I have asked the Department's agents on the ground to assess the situation which is a fundamental exercise to carry out before we do anything else. If we were to do something on foot of that, I have every confidence that funding would be available but we have to gather the information and as I have said previously, Teagasc is in the field to do that assessment. We will have feedback from that in due course and we will consider the options available to the Department then. I am satisfied that, should the need arise from its analysis of the situation on the ground, we will be in a position to respond.