By way of explanation I would like to provide a short background to this issue. In 2011 my Department officials met with two separate groups which had conducted feasibility studies into the possibility of establishing a new sugar and bioethanol production facility, using sugar beet, in this country. The figures published by the interested groups who are investigating the possibility of building a new facility, indicate that the overall capital costs involved could range from €250 million to €400 million, depending on what type of facility will be constructed.
My Department officials informed both groups at the time and many times since that any venture to develop a combined sugar/bioethanol production facility in Ireland, would have to be a viable commercial proposition, and supported by a sufficiently robust business case in order to attract the funding from investors for the very substantial capital investment required. My Government colleague Minister Coveney clearly informed both groups at the time that it was his job to look for agreement at EU level to allow for the growing of sugar beet for the manufacture of sugar, at the earliest possible date. In this connection, he secured agreement as part of the overall CAP reform package at the final EU Council of Agriculture Ministers, which he chaired in June 2013, to abolish all sugar quotas by 30 September 2017. This agreement removes, with effect from 1 October 2017, the current EU quota barrier for operators in Ireland or other Member State's, wishing to re-establish a sugar industry.
The current Programme for a Partnership Government makes clear that “State enterprise bodies will be asked to examine any substantial business plans related to rebuilding the industry with a view to considering appropriate State supports”. The opportunity remains therefore for interested parties to move the project forward and to garner sufficient commercial and financial support to turn their plans into a viable reality.
Through the EU Research and Innovation funding stream currently called the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking - ongoing for the period 2014-2020 - there is the possibility to submit proposals for evaluation to a competitive funding process in relation to, inter alia, producing industrial chemicals from sugar beet. This Joint Undertaking is a €3.7 billion Public-Private Partnership between the EU and the Bio-based Industries Consortium. The programme operates under Horizon 2020, the EU Funding Programme for research and innovation, and it is driven by the Vision and Strategic Innovation and Research Agenda (SIRA) developed by the Biobased Industry Consortium.
Proposals to the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking may cover research and innovation, pilot and demonstration and flagship actions. The annual work plan for the Bio-Based Industries Joint Undertaking indicates the topics eligible for funding each year. This plan is now available for 2017. The call for proposals will open in April and submissions must be made by early September 2017 with indicative results of proposal evaluations provided in December 2017.
A number of Irish participants have so far accessed the EU funding opportunity under the Bio Based Industries Joint Undertaking. To date Irish academic institutions and industry have been funded to the value of €2 million in four projects. These include University College Dublin (UCD), Trinity College Dublin (TCD), University of Limerick (UL), Monaghan Mushrooms, Eire Composites Teoranta and Celignis. The projects concerned have dealt with a diverse range of issues such as valorising residues and by-products from the agriculture and food processing industry to extract valuable bio-compounds; valorisation of agro-residues from mushroom industrial cultivation into bio-based functional additives and biopolymers; development of a biorefinery concept based on the cascading use of spent mushroom substrate (SMS) supplemented by wheat straw and other seasonal underutilised lignocellulosic feedstocks; and also producing carbon fibres from forestry by-products.
