Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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106. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if his Department is preparing or has completed a formal application to the European Commission seeking an adaptation to the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund to enable it to be used and ensure exposed companies can avail of grant aid from the economic fallout of Brexit. [21976/18]

John Halligan (Waterford, Independent)
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The European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) is an EU co-funding instrument to assist workers who are made redundant as a result of globalisation or due to a global financial and economic crisis. To be eligible for assistance there must be at least 500 redundancies in a specific company (including suppliers / downstream producers) in a 4 month period, or at least 500 redundancies in a specific sector in a 9 month period. In small labour markets or in exceptional circumstances, applications can be made where the minimum threshold number of redundancies is not entirely met and the Member State can substantiate that there is a serious impact on employment and the local, regional or national economy.

The package of measures that can be co-financed by the EGF include personalised active labour market measures targeted at the redundant workers. Before an application for EGF assistance can be submitted to the EU Commission, the redundancies in question must have been announced by the enterprise(s) concerned.

While the EGF could potentially assist workers made redundant following Brexit, there is no scope under the existing regulatory framework for the EGF to be used to support companies at risk. There are a range of measures being put in place to support companies impacted by Brexit, such as the Brexit Loan Scheme, the Brexit SME Scorecard and the Be Prepared Grant. The Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation are examining the potential for a new longer-term Business Investment Loan Scheme while the EU Commission has approved a rescue and restructuring scheme which can be drawn on in exceptional circumstances for companies severely affected by Brexit.