Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Question 132: To ask the Minister for Finance the EU structural funds allocated to Ireland, broken down by region, for each of the years 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013; if any of these funds remain to be allocated; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32389/09]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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For the purposes of EU Structural and Cohesion Funds, Ireland is designated into two NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) II regions, namely the Border, Midland and Western (BMW) Region and the Southern and Eastern (S&E) Region. Under the Regional Competitiveness and Employment Objective, Ireland has been allocated €750 million of EU Structural Funds for the period 2007-13. Of this €458 million has been allocated to the BMW Region and €292 million to the S&E Region.

Ireland's National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF), which sets out the strategy for using these Funds, was approved by the European Commission in July 2007. The BMW, S&E and Human Capital Investment Operational Programmes implementing the strategic priorities in the NSRF were approved by the European Commission in October and November 2007. The annual allocations are set out in table 1, which follows, and reflect the full amount of Structural Funds available to Ireland over the 2007-2013 programming period. Table 2 sets out the same information broken down by region.

A further €151 million has been allocated under ERDF for smaller Territorial Co-operation Operational Programmes, including the PEACE III Programme and the INTERREG Programmes for Ireland/Northern Ireland/Scotland and Ireland/Wales.

Table 1 - Ireland's indicative financial allocation for NSRF

Table 2 - Ireland's indicative financial allocation for NSRF - regional breakdown

Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour)
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Question 133: To ask the Minister for Finance the extent to which Irish credit institutions have drawn down European Investment Bank funds for the purpose of on-lending to small and medium enterprises here; the efforts he has made to encourage these institutions to draw down these funds; the nature of the financial products being employed by the Irish credit institutions to support Irish SMEs with financial backing from the EIB; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [32390/09]

Brian Lenihan Jnr (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)
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The European Investment Bank announced on 3 October 2008 that it was increasing lending for European small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to help mitigate the effects of the current credit crisis. This support is in the form of a €30 billion facility to provide loans to commercial banks for onlending to SMEs to fund medium to long-term investment projects.

Four banks operating in Ireland now have access to the EIB facility: Allied Irish Bank (AIB), Bank of Ireland (BoI) and Ulster Bank have access to €100 million each and Bank of Scotland Ireland has access to €50 million.

The overall SME Facility is an important initiative from the EIB and I have strongly urged the Irish financial institutions to utilise the facility to the maximum extent possible with a view to making the additional funding involved available to SMEs as soon as possible.

The allocation of the loans and the drawdown of the funds is a commercial matter for the banks. The indications are that substantial amounts of lending under the facility have been approved across a wide range of sectors. However, it is important to emphasise that the EIB makes funding available for onlending to SMEs as part of its mandate to assist the development of the SME sector. As a result, commercial banks that borrow from the facility are required to ensure that the money is onlent to SMEs for investment and expansion of their activities. Investment can include the purchase of tangible assets (other than land unless vital to the investment), spending on development, planning and financing costs during the construction phase of a project, spending on research and development and building up distribution networks.

It follows that there are constraints on lending from the EIB scheme. Borrowing for short-term working capital is generally not eligible, although a permanent increase in working capital required to develop an expanding SME would qualify. Loans for cash flow or the refinancing of other debt and generally for the takeover of other businesses would not qualify.