Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The truth is that the solutions we are putting in place are not those the Deputy would put in place, which would, by and large, be to the detriment of agriculture. The kind of innovative thinking we are now talking about with the EIB is not the kind of thing on which the Deputy would have focused. My understanding is that primary food producers and SMEs, including farmers, can access the SBCI money. I met Ulster Bank and Bank of Ireland at CEO level yesterday to discuss some of the things they are doing in this area and I will meet AIB tomorrow.

In terms of the RDP, we have a set amount of money we can spend, namely, just under €4 billion. The EIB is trying to complement that spend. People who are using grant aid to upgrade their farmyards, for example, should be able to borrow the balance from competitive funds that can be put in place to do that. If we can show there is market failure in certain areas, in other words, that farmers or the agricultural industry cannot get competitive finance in the normal way or we can show that there is the potential for added value to an investment in a certain area, and if that is consistent with EU policy, which is always a test for EIB investment, we should be able to draw down money to do that. Such money would probably come through the existing banking system, as is the case with the SBCI, or perhaps through new financial models for farmers. That is yet to be put in place.

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