Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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1228. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he made the case for a revision of State aid de minimis rules to provide support to farmers. [36688/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The matter of a revision of State Aid rules, and more particularly that of a possible increase to the current State Aid thresholds, was raised at a number of Agri-Fish Council meetings in 2016, in the context of the ongoing difficulties being experienced on EU agricultural markets.  Some Member States, including Ireland, raised the possibility of increasing individual de minimis thresholds from their current level of €15,000. 

In March 2016, at the Council of Agriculture Ministers, I put forward a 10 point plan, setting out proposed measures, that I believed were practical, easily implemented and responded to the pressures on farmers and primary producers in an appropriate and proportionate way.  Among the measures proposed, was greater flexibility in the State Aid rules, with a modest increase in the de minimis limit from €15,000 per farmer over three years, up to €20,000 per farmer over three years. To date the Commission has resisted an increase.

Under the Agriculture De Minimis Regulation (1408/2013), my Department is currently preparing for the launch of the 2017 Weather Related Crop Loss Support Measure, which aims to provide financial aid to farmers, where genuine crop losses have been incurred on foot of the wet weather in September 2016.