Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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1414. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if the State is preparing an application to the European Commission to authorise a multimillion euro package of state aid to help farmers deal with price fluctuations in sterling arising from the Brexit vote. [38946/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Brexit poses enormous challenges for the Irish agri-food and fisheries sectors, the most immediate of which arises in the form of the significant fall in the value of sterling against the euro, which has become particularly acute recently.

I fully understand and appreciate the significant impact that this is having on farmers. Indeed, I and my Department, with the support of the Government, have been actively engaged in developing responses that will help to ameliorate this impact, for example through the new €150 million loan fund introduced as part of a package of measures announced in Budget 2017.  We are also actively considering further measures that may need to be deployed over the medium- to longer-term.

However, the scale of the difficulties being created by the current period of volatility requires that other approaches be considered. Accordingly, I have been considering the need for specific EU support, and have been engaging with Commissioner Hogan and other Member States in this regard, most recently at last week's Informal Council in Estonia.

I intend to pursue the matter further by raising it at next month's AgriFish Council and by asking my colleagues to consider a range of measures that will help the Irish agri-food sector to deal with these difficulties.