Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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259. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of fishermen and fisherwomen who availed of South and South West Fisheries Local Action Groups by each category of the scheme and in absolute and relative terms to the estimated total eligible number of boats in tabular form. [35743/20]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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My Department's European Maritime and Fisheries Fund Operational Programme is providing €240 million in financial supports to our seafood sector over the period 2014-20. The Programme includes a Fisheries Local Area Development Scheme which implements a community-led local development approach to the socio-economic development of coastal communities. Through the Scheme, seven Fisheries Local Action Groups (FLAGs) were selected in 2017 to disperse a Scheme budget of €12 million.

The EMFF Programme specifies the overarching strategy for the Scheme and states that it will be focussed on promoting innovative approaches in fisheries and aquaculture areas to create growth and jobs in those areas, in particular by adding value to fishery and aquaculture products and diversifying the local economy towards new economic activities, in particular those offered by ‘blue growth’ and the broader maritime sectors. Each of the seven FLAGs devised a Local Development Strategy which guides their selection of projects for funding, consistent with this overarching strategy.

The Programme also provides that actions supported by FLAGs must ensure complementarity with, and avoid duplication of, measures provided under other EMFF schemes. Other EMFF schemes provide capital grants to fishermen for investment on board and for value adding investments ashore and support innovation, professional advisory services, training, capacity building and networking of fishermen.

The seven FLAGs have awarded funding to a broad range of projects since 2017 including marine tourism and marine leisure, enhancements to smaller fishery harbour infrastructure, seafood festivals, marine heritage, marine environmental projects and micro seafood processing projects.

I understand that the application process for the FLAG scheme does not ask applcants if they own or crew on a fishing vessel. However, the best information available to BIM indicates that the grant awards specifically to fishing vessel owners or crew are as detailed in the tables below.

South West FLAG

South FLAG