Brendan Griffin (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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86. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he will reduce the investment threshold for the farm safety scheme from €2,000 to €1,000 to encourage greater participation in the scheme by smaller farmers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45632/14]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Farm Safety Scheme was opened for applications on 22 October 2014 and will remain open until 9^thJanuary 2015. Interest in the scheme has been very high with some 2,000 applications received to date. Grant schemes have to operate above a certain threshold to ensure that they actually bring about change and incentivise a level of investment that would not otherwise take place. The minimum investment threshold for the Safety Scheme has already been set quite low and to reduce it further would significantly dilute the impact value of the scheme.