Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein)
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265. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the amount she expects to be redeemed of the €80.018 million paid out up to March 2017 under the enterprise stabilisation fund; the total amount she expects to be written off; and the date this scheme is set to cease operation. [22287/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The Enterprise Stabilisation Fund (ESF) was established by Government to support viable but vulnerable exporting companies who were experiencing difficulties due to the economic crisis which started in 2008.  

The State Aid basis for the Enterprise Stabilisation Fund is the Temporary Aid Framework 2008.  Based on this derogation from the EU, the ESF was open for applications for the years 2009 and 2010.

Funding was in the form of preference shares, supporting a range of activities including market development, productivity improvements, cost reduction and product development.

Analysis of the scheme indicated that, as of March 2017, EI approved €80.4m under the ESF and paid out €80.018m.  As of March 2017, €22.5m has been redeemed to date from companies that were legally in a position to do so.  (A company must have distributable reserves to be in a position, legally, to repay the State.) Redemption of the shares is an ongoing process and will continue to be sought as companies are in a position to do so.

However, €15.72m invested in ESF companies cannot be redeemed as the companies have been dissolved, liquidated or gone into receivership.