Written answers
Thursday, 20 March 2025
Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment
Business Supports
Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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293. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment for an update on the status of payments made by Microfinance Ireland to farmers; the number, value and breakdown of payments made to farmers through Microfinance Ireland; the timeline of disbursements; the counties involved; and the types of farming enterprises supported from 2020 to 2024 and to date in 2025, by county, in tabular form. [13215/25]
Alan Dillon (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Microfinance Ireland provides vital support to microenterprises by filling the lending gap in the market, lending to businesses that cannot obtain loans from other commercial lenders. It provides loans of €2,000 up to €50,000 to businesses that do not meet the conventional risk criteria applied by commercial lenders and applies interest rate charges for its lending which are not reflective of its credit risk.
There is wide regional spread of loans across the country with 78% of loans approved in 2024 to microenterprises outside Dublin. Microfinance Ireland also provides post approval mentoring services to its borrowers through the Local Enterprise Office Network.
In recent years Microfinance Ireland (MFI) were providing loans under the Temporary Crisis and Transition Framework which ceased in December 2023, thereafter the applicable State Aid Framework for any qualifying finance agreement is the De Minimis Regulations. To ensure that MFI meet European Union agriculture state aid requirements requires new legal arrangements for data sharing between MFI and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. Work is advancing between that Department, my Department and MFI, to put these new arrangements in place as soon as possible.
The lending breakdown to farmers is as follows:
| Year | Number of Loans | Value of loans |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 41 | 950,600 |
| 2021 | 29 | 558,300 |
| 2022 | 14 | 255,024 |
| 2023 | 14 | 225,000 |
| 2024 | 0 | 0 |
| To date 2025 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 98 | 1,988,924 |
| Types of Farming Enterprises | Number of Loans | Value of Loans |
|---|---|---|
| Growing of cereals (except rice), leguminous crops and oil seeds | 2 | 32,000 |
| Growing of vegetables and melons, roots and tubers | 10 | 146,074 |
| Growing of other tree and bush fruits and nuts | 1 | 15,000 |
| Plant propagation | 2 | 30,000 |
| Raising of dairy cattle | 18 | 412,750 |
| Raising of other cattle and buffaloes | 16 | 289,000 |
| Raising of horses and other equines | 5 | 128,000 |
| Raising of sheep and goats | 4 | 61,100 |
| Raising of poultry | 4 | 100,000 |
| Raising of other animals | 2 | 40,000 |
| Mixed farming | 11 | 220,000 |
| Support activities for crop production | 2 | 65,000 |
| Support activities for animal production | 9 | 138,000 |
| Silviculture and other forestry activities | 2 | 75,000 |
| Logging | 1 | 9,000 |
| Support services to forestry | 1 | 25,000 |
| Marine fishing | 2 | 66,000 |
| Freshwater fishing | 1 | 10,000 |
| Marine aquaculture | 5 | 127,000 |
| Total | 98 | 1,988,924 |
| County | Number of Loans | Value of loans |
|---|---|---|
| Cavan | 2 | 35,000 |
| Clare | 4 | 88,500 |
| Cork | 9 | 203,000 |
| Donegal | 14 | 279,600 |
| Dublin | 3 | 39,274 |
| Galway | 5 | 107,000 |
| Kerry | 6 | 72,000 |
| Kildare | 2 | 27,000 |
| Kilkenny | 6 | 101,000 |
| Laois | 2 | 40,000 |
| Leitrim | 2 | 46,000 |
| Limerick | 3 | 35,000 |
| Louth | 5 | 83,500 |
| Mayo | 7 | 158,300 |
| Meath | 2 | 28,000 |
| Monaghan | 2 | 50,000 |
| Offaly | 2 | 65,000 |
| Roscommon | 1 | 25,000 |
| Sligo | 3 | 32,000 |
| Tipperary | 5 | 114,000 |
| Waterford | 2 | 48,250 |
| Westmeath | 1 | 25,000 |
| Wexford | 8 | 211,500 |
| Wicklow | 2 | 75,000 |
| Total | 98 | 1,988,924 |
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