Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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14. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the actions he has taken to ensure that Irish agriculture is not at a loss because of recent sanctions imposed by Russia on certain goods from the EU; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35169/14]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Last year the value of our exports of agri-food products to Russia was €235 million. This represents about 2.5% of our total agri-food exports. However, not all agricultural products are affected by the Presidential ban. Tea extract, infant formula, casein and beverages are not subject to the trade restrictions. Moreover, Russia had already imposed a blanket ban on exports of pig-meat from the EU earlier in the year arising from an African Swine fever outbreak in Eastern Europe. There were also existing temporary restrictions in place on certain Irish plants producing dairy products, beef, beef offal and seafood arising from a Russian audit visit earlier this year so that the effect of the Presidential ban was incremental. As to the actions taken, imediately upon announcement of the Presidential ban, I asked Bord Bia to establish an advice line to make the most up to date information available to Irish companies exporting to Russia and to assist them in progressing market opportunities elsewhere. I and my Department are making strenuous efforts to create other market possibilities for Irish agri-food exports. Last month we were successful in securing the opening of the Philippines to exports of Irish beef, pig-meat and sheep-meat and the Vietnamese market for Irish pig-meat. Later this year I will be undertaking a trade mission to China. These are key markets in South East Asia which have been identified by Irish exporters as being of major strategic importance. China, in particular, is a crucially important growth market for Irish food and drinks with vast import potential across a number of agricultural sectors.

In addition, my Department and the Irish Embassy in Moscow have been heavily engaged with the Russian authorities on the pre-existing restrictions and are submitting the required corrective actions to have these temporary restrictions lifted as soon as possible.

At the beginning of the month I attended an extraordinary meeting of EU agriculture ministers to discuss the matter. The Commission has already taken a number of steps to address the immediate effect of the ban. These include the expansion of the timeframe for application of aids to private storage of butter and skimmed milk powder and the extension of the facility to cheese. These schemes are being taken up by the industry here and my Department is currently working closely with them. The Commission has also taken action to support the fruit and vegetables sector which, because of the perishable nature of the products, is particularly vulnerable to unexpected disruption of trade. The Commission has come forward with an additional allocation of €60 million of EU funding for CAP promotion programmes in 2015 and I have encouraged industry here to apply for part of this funding.

I have asked the Commission to continue to monitor the situation closely and to take prompt action, where appropriate. I also made clear at Council that there a number of tools available to us at EU level under the new Common Market regulation which we must be ready to deploy where required and where appropriate. Finally, I have called on the Commission to increase the advance payment, payable to farmers from 16^thOctober next under the Direct Payments Scheme from the current 50%.