Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Question 596: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the number of companies which are beneficiaries of the recent meat investment fund; the number of jobs which each company expects to create on foot of this grant aid; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22955/09]

David Stanton (Cork East, Fine Gael)
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Question 600: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the grant aid made available or committed to meat processing companies in the past 12 months; the amount and companies involved; the conditions attached; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23136/09]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 596 and 600 together.

Grant aid was made available to the meat processing sector in the last 12 months under two funding programmes following detailed selection and evaluation processes. A grant aid scheme for the small meat sector, which includes small slaughterhouses and low throughput meat establishments, culminated in my Department awarding a total of €7.8m in grant assistance to 31 enterprises in December 2008. Details are at Appendix 1. The awards will assist the meat businesses to improve efficiency, add quality and value to products, produce new and innovative products and develop new markets.

Under the Beef and Sheepmeat Investment Fund, grant assistance of over €69 million was recently announced in respect of 15 investment projects, each exceeding €2 million. The awards, which are part of a strategy to position the industry to face the challenges and grasp the opportunities that lie ahead, will contribute to total investment in the region of €168 million. The objective of the Fund is to support investment to increase scale and efficiency in primary processing, and added value in further processing for retail, food service and manufacturing outlets. No overall increase in processing capacity within the sector is envisaged. The individual investments supported by the Fund will have a range of impacts on sales and employment. The overall net impact planned by companies in this multi-annual programme of investment is expected to achieve over €400 million in additional sales and exports and a net expansion of 800 in employment following completion of the package of investments in 2012. Details of the awards are at appendix 2. For reasons of commercial confidentiality and because the investments will take place over a number of years it would not be appropriate to provide further details of individual projects at this stage.

The awards carry the condition that beneficiaries undertake not to dispose of equipment or buildings in respect of which grant aid has been paid for a period of five years from the date that the final grant instalment is payable or is paid.

Appendix 1

GRANT AID AWARDED TOWARDS CAPITAL INVESTMENT IN SMALL MEAT SECTOR

Appendix 2

Grant Aid awarded under Beef and Sheepmeat Investment Fund