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

One of my priorities is to improve access to finance for the agrifood sector. Food Wise 2025 identifies competitiveness as a key theme and includes a recommendation that stakeholders work to “improve access to finance for agriculture, forestry and seafood producers and agrifood companies”.

I launched a new Brexit loan scheme on 28 March in cooperation with the Minister for Business, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Humphreys, and the Minister for Finance, Deputy Donohoe, which will provide up to €300 million of affordable, flexible working capital finance to Irish businesses that are or will be impacted by Brexit. The scheme will be available to small and medium enterprises, SMEs, and mid-cap businesses. In light of the unique exposure of food businesses to the United Kingdom market, my Department’s funding ensures that at least 40% of the fund will be available to them. The finance will be easier to access, more competitively priced at a proposed interest rate of 4% and on more favourable terms than current offerings. This will give businesses impacted upon by Brexit businesses time and space to adapt and grow into the future. The scheme will remain open until 31 March 2020. It is modelled on the agriculture cashflow support loan scheme which I made available to farmers in 2017.

I announced in budget 2018 that my Department is considering the development of Brexit response loan schemes for farmers and fishermen and longer-term capital financing for food businesses. Such schemes are developed and delivered in co-operation with the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, SBCI, and take time to develop and put into operation. Consideration and discussions are ongoing in that regard and I will announce further details 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 the banks have specialised products available and expressed a commitment to servicing the future financing needs of the sector. The delivery of the Brexit loan scheme and last year’s agriculture cashflow support loan scheme can act as a catalyst to encourage financial institutions to improve and develop new loan products for the sector. The milk flex loans developed by the Irish Strategic Investment Fund, with dairy co-op and private banking participation, are a good example of innovation in this regard.

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