Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
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34. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his plans that the Government will provide co-funding to match the funds being made available by the European Investment Bank to Irish agriculture, rural development and forestry; the proposed amount of this co-funding; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26053/15]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Under the regulations governing the European Structural and Investment Funds (including the Rural Development Programme - RDP ) it is open to Member States to fund interventions via financial instruments. Essentially, financial instruments offer an alternative to the traditional grant based approach whereby schemes under the RDP may be funded via loans, guarantee funds or equity investments. The funding for any such financial instruments would have to draw on our existing RDP allocation of European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development funding as well as National Exchequer funding. It is also possible to incorporate funding from other sources such as the European Investment Bank.

The European Commission has indicated that it is aiming to double the usage of these financial instruments in the 2014-2020 programming period. Officials in my Department have been engaging with the European Commission, EIB and other stakeholders in order to identify areas where financial instruments could be implemented to best strategic effect. They are also exploring the practical steps which are required in order to implement financial instruments and put in place a clear plan based on real market failures and economic needs.

In addition to exploring the possibility of implementing financial instruments via the RDP, my Department has been active in exploring new and more competitive sources of funding and will continue to do so in the context of evolving market requirements. The recent announcement by the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI) of a new product, ‘Agriculture Investment Loans’, is a welcome addition to the sources of funding currently in the market. The European Investment Bank is one of the SBCI’s funding partners, and this new product is available at favourable terms for investments by agricultural SMEs involved in primary agricultural production, the processing of agricultural products or the marketing of agricultural products.