Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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528. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to outline the additional state aid exemptions on infrastructure projects which the Government has sought. [31010/17]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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My Department has notified the European Commission that Fáilte Ireland's Grants Scheme for Large Tourism Projects, which was launched on 8 June 2016, will be seeking state aid exemptions in respect of the scheme.

The scheme has a total fund of €65 million and runs from 2016-2021. The scheme seeks to avail of five categories under Commission Regulation (EU) No. 651/2014 of 17 June 2014 declaring certain categories of aid compatible with the internal market in application of Articles 107 and 108 of the Treaty (the "General Block Exemption Regulation").

The categories are:

- Regional Investment Aid;

- Culture and Heritage Conservation and Consultancy Aid in the Context of Culture and Heritage Conservation;

- Aid for Sport and Multi-Functional Leisure Facilities;

- Local Infrastructure Aid;

- Consultancy Aid to SMEs.

In May of this year the EU Commission announced amendments to the EU General Block Exemption Regulation (GBER). The revision of this Regulation was subject to two public consultations by the EU Commission with various stakeholders and Member States and Ireland participated in those consultations. The GBER Regulation exempts certain categories of State aid from the requirement of prior notification to the Commission, if these are unlikely to distort competition in the Single Market. The revisions will have limited impact for our regional airports since Ireland already received State-aid clearance from the EU Commission in 2015 for our current, five-year, Regional Airports Programme 2015-2019. However, one new concession (for airports that handle less than 200,000 passengers annually) in the revised GBER regime that would be relevant to the airports in Donegal and Waterford is that they would be eligible for aid towards operating losses, if incurred. In practice, Waterford is already eligible for this kind of operational support under our current Regional Airports Programme.

As I outlined in a separate reply  today to the Deputy (Ref No: 31009/17), officials in my Department are also currently engaging with their counterparts in the EU Commission as to how best to advance an application by the authorities in Knock airport for approval for a 90% State aid contribution towards a project to upgrade and resurface the runway at the airport.