Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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194. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of meetings that have taken place to date since the formation of the working group comprising representatives from the Directorate General for Competition, his Department, Enterprise Ireland and the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation to scope and design schemes to support enterprises impacted by Brexit in line with state aid rules; the dates of all such meetings; the remaining meetings planned for 2018 and Q1 2019; the progression on new potential schemes that fall within state aid rules and their operational date; if he or Enterprise Ireland submitted or discussed proposals in the forum requesting that the state aid ceiling under EU Regulation No. 1407/2013 be temporally adapted as a policy response to protect Irish companies and exporting businesses exposed to a no-deal hard Brexit and the UK becoming a third country; and when such proposals were formally submitted. [46370/18]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation is the lead Department in relation to the development of Ireland's response to supporting enterprises impacted by Brexit in line with State Aid rules.

Since the establishment of the Technical Working Group on State Aid in November 2017, the group has met on 6 separate occasions on the following dates:-

- 20 November 2017

- 12 December 2017

- 19 February 2018

- 23 March 2018

- 26 April 2018

- 26 July 2018

Meetings for the remainder of this year and early next year have not yet been scheduled.

In addition to these meetings, my Department officials have also been engaging bilaterally with DG AGRI, with a view to exploring potential state aid measures, that could support market and product diversification by agrifood companies, under the agricultural state aid rules and regulations. These discussions are ongoing.

As regards proposals to temporarily adapt the threshold ceilings under EU Regulation 1407/2013, the general de minimis regulation, this falls within the remit of the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation.