Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Food Wise 2025, the ten-year vision for the Irish agrifood industry, identifies competitiveness as a key theme and recommends that stakeholders work to improve access to finance for agriculture, forestry, seafood producers and agrifood companies. One of my priorities as Minister is to improve access to finance for the agrifood sector. I announced in budget 2018 that my Department is considering the development of potential Brexit response loan schemes for the primary sector, to include farmers and fishermen. The schemes are developed and delivered in co-operation with the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, SBCI, and take time to develop and operationalise. Consideration and discussions are ongoing in that regard and I will announce further details on this as they become available. While continuing to explore additional funding mechanisms, I also liaise with the main banks on issues relating to the agrifood sector, all of whom have specialised products available and have expressed a commitment to servicing the future financing needs of the sector.

I understand that the specific ACRE and Cultivate loan packages recently launched by a number of credit unions in Munster are entirely commercial activities by the credit unions concerned and the Government has no role in the matter.

My Department's €240 million European Maritime and Fisheries Fund, EMFF, Operational Programme for the seafood sector is providing a range of support measures to the inshore fisheries sector. A dedicated fund of €6 million is available to inshore fishermen to invest in adding value to their catch, for stock conservation measures such as v-notching, to support the work of the inshore fisheries forums and a range of other measures set out in the inshore fisheries conservation scheme, administered by BIM. Grants of up to 80% are available for those purposes. Separately, grants of up to 70% are available to inshore fishermen under the sustainable fisheries scheme for investment on board in selective gear, in quality, hygiene, energy efficiency and value adding equipment. Grants of 30% are available under that scheme for engine replacement. Under the new fishermen scheme, grants of 25% are available to young inshore fishermen to purchase their first fishing boat. BIM also makes available to fishermen a broad range of advisory services on matters such as business planning and environmental management. I believe that this wide range of supports under the EMFF programme clearly demonstrates my commitment to assisting the inshore sector to develop and prosper.

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