Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail)
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To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the co-financed Exchequer funding that will be required to fully drawdown EU funding under the rural development plan (pillar 2) in the forthcoming Common Agricultural Policy; as decided by the heads of government in the MFF; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14658/13]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The European Council agreement on the Multi-annual Financial Framework (MFF) provides some €313m for Ireland per year under Pillar 2 of the CAP for the period 2014 - 2020. This includes a special allocation of €100 million, over the full period, negotiated in the final stages of the talks.

The MFF provides for flexibility regarding the co-financing rates for Pillar 2 support measures and a number of different rates have been incorporated into the proposal. A general co-financing rate of 53% is proposed but this rate may rise to a maximum of 80% for measures such as farm and business development, co-operation activities, Leader projects, and other measures. Environmental type measures may be co-funded up to 75%.

The amount of exchequer funding that will be required to draw down the available EU funding will depend firstly on the types of measures that will be included in the Programme and secondly on the co-financing rate that is agreed with the EU Commission for these measures. As the Programme is in the course of being developed at present, no decisions have yet been taken on these issues. It is too early therefore to confirm the level of exchequer funding that will be required for the next round and this must await finalisation of the new programme.