Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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284. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation the details of each specific EU Competitiveness Council Ministers meeting in which she or her predecessors made the case for the need for a revision of State aid rules to protect Irish enterprises and related jobs during the UK's two-year exit phase from the EU and subsequent transition phase; the date of each meeting in which this was raised, in tabular form; the progress made at EU level to increase state aid thresholds to support Irish enterprises from a hard Brexit; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [53666/17]

Heather Humphreys (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael)
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Since the Brexit Referendum, my predecessor, Mary Mitchell O’Connor, attended meetings of the Competitiveness Council on 29th September 2016, 28th November 2016 and 20th February 2017. State Aid rules did not feature on the agenda of these meetings. The Competitiveness Council is a consultative committee and is not a forum for direct representations from Member States. Nor does the Council propose changes to State Aid rules.

Brexit was a central part of the discussions at meetings my predecessor, Frances Fitzgerald, had with both EU Commissioners and Ministers from other Member States. This included a meeting with the EU’s Chief Brexit Negotiator, Michel Barnier in July 2017 where the difficulties Ireland is facing as a result of Brexit were discussed.

In addition, Officials of my Department have had discussions with senior officials from DG Competition to sensitise them to the potential difficulties to be encountered by Irish businesses in the UK market arising from the Brexit referendum result. Furthermore, in November 2017, the then Tánaiste met with Commissioner Vestager. An outcome from this meeting was the establishment of a Working Group comprising representatives from DG Comp, the Department of Business, Enterprise & Innovation, Enterprise Ireland and Department of Agriculture. The objective of the Group is to scope and design schemes to support enterprise impacted by Brexit in line with current applicable State Aid rules. The work of this Group has already commenced and will continue into 2018. Should issues arise that require an approach that does not fit within the existing State Aid rules, this will be raised as part of the Working Group discussions.

A lot can be done within the existing EU State Aid Framework. In October 2017, the then Tánaiste announced a Brexit Loan Guarantee scheme for SMEs and in November 2017 the EU Commission approved a Rescue and Restructuring scheme for Ireland. Both these schemes will operate within existing State Aid rules.