(Limerick West): My Department do not directly grant-aid the aquaculture industry. Grants are provided by BIM in non-Gaeltacht areas and by Údarás na Gaeltachta in Gaeltacht areas. Grants are also available from the European Community.
The purpose of these grant schemes has been and remains the promotion of the development of the aquaculture sector with a view to creating employment and growth, particularly in regions where other opportunities are limited.
The number of grants paid by BIM to salmon and trout farming projects in the period 1979 to 1989 is 55, totalling £1,852,585. It is not BIM practice to publish details of grant aid to individual projects. Údarás na Gaeltachta grant aided projects at a total of £4,148,061 over the same period. Grants by the European Community to the sector through the FEOGA programme in 1989 alone was over £1.5 million.
This policy has, to date, been highly successful in meeting the objectives and targets for the Irish finfish industry and Irish aquaculture development as a whole. Total employment has now reached 2,100 jobs and output has grown to a value of £30 million. It is planned to increase employment to 3,500 by end 1991 and to bring output to over £70 million.
The return to the State on investment in an industry can usefully be expressed as gross value added per State pound invested. An ESRI study published in 1988 reveals a return for aquaculture of £2.80 per pound invested. This is four times better than the average for indigenous industry. The comparative cost per job in fish farming is also appreciably lower. The ESRI report concluded that compared with other sectors State investment in fish farming is very productive.