Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 18 May 2021
296. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Finance if Ireland provides funding to EU defence initiatives and schemes; if so, the amount in total Ireland has contributed to these schemes; and when these contributions began. [25701/21]
View answerThe Department of Finance is responsible for making Ireland’s contributions to the EU Budget, as part of the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). The European Defence Fund (EDF) supports competitive collaborative defence projects through research and development. The overall value of the EDF under the MFF for 2021-2027 is €7bn.
Contributions to the EU budget are general and are not assigned to specific programmes. Therefore it is not possible to say how much Ireland contributes to particular programmes under the MFF that have defence aspects.
Any bilateral contributions to other EU programmes outside of the MFF, including defence-related programmes, made by a Government Department, such as the Department of Defence or the Department of Foreign Affairs, are the responsibility of those Departments. The Department of Finance does not have details of those contributions.
