Throughout the Covid-19 Pandemic, Government has made available financial and other supports for employees and businesses negatively impacted by the Pandemic. Both the Pandemic Unemployment Payment and Wage Subsidy Scheme have supported the incomes of employees and the self-employed in our seafood sector and I am aware that many availed of these Government payments in the first half of 2020. Government has also made available low-cost loans to seafood businesses for working capital and other purposes.
My Department's €240 million European Maritime and Fisheries Fund Programme 2014-2020 is the principal source of public funding for the sustainable development of our fisheries, aquaculture and seafood processing sectors. The Programme is delivered through a range of support schemes providing supports for capital investment, innovation, advisory services, marketing, training, stock conservation and protection of marine biodiversity. These support schemes have continued throughout the Covid-19 Pandemic and take-up of grants has remained strong. The Programme is now nearing its end, with funds already mostly committed through grant offers and I anticipate that the Programme will finish in 2021. My Department is working to develop a new Seafood Development Programme for the 2021-27 period.
As part of the Coronavirus Response Investment Initiative Plus, the European Union amended the EMFF Regulation (508/2014) in 2020 to ensure that Member States’ EMFF Programmes could be best used to support their seafood sectors with the specific impacts of the Pandemic. The additional measures available through these amendments will end on 31 December 2020.
For the fisheries sector, the amendments to the EMFF Regulation facilitated Member States that chose to implement either a fleet tie-up scheme or a storage aid market support scheme and only those two measures. Over the course of March and April 2020, the previous Minister engaged in detailed discussions with representatives of the fisheries sector, including Producer Organisations, fisheries cooperatives, and the National Inshore Fisheries Forum. It was clear from those meetings that there was a consensus among fishing representatives that they did not wish to see a storage aid scheme introduced, as they feared it would create a market overhang of stored product that may undermine market prices. Instead, fishing representatives expressed a wish to see a temporary fleet tie-up scheme introduced to support the fixed costs of vessel owners who chose to tie-up during periods of market turbulence, with the Pandemic Unemployment Payment complementing such a scheme by supporting the incomes of crew while the vessels are tied up. A Covid-19 Temporary Fleet Tie-up Scheme was implemented over three months June to August 2020.
For aquaculture, the EMFF amendments facilitated Member States that chose to implement a storage aid scheme for aquaculture products or a scheme to compensate aquaculture producers for reduced sales or production because of the Pandemic. I announced a Covid 19 Aquaculture Support Scheme on 22 October designed to compensate oyster and rope mussel producers by supporting their costs of production for product that they were unable to sell over the period February to June 2020. Payments reflect the historic production levels of producers and their costs of production and are based on official data provided by producers themselves through the Annual Aquaculture Production and Employment Survey. For oyster producers, payments range from €6,800 to €16,300 per business and for rope mussel producers who have considerably lower costs of production, payments range from €1,300 to €9,000 per business. I anticipate that BIM will be inviting applications in early November with a view to paying successful applicants in 2020.
