My Department, in partnership with the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment and the Department of Finance, has worked with the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland (SBCI) to deliver a number of loan schemes that support SMEs in Ireland, including farmers, fishers and food businesses.
Public funds provided for these schemes mainly relate to the provision of guarantees, with the lending institutions providing the actual finance for the loans. Any unused guarantee funding is repayable.
The Brexit Impact Loan Scheme (BILS) is a €315m medium-term, low-cost loan scheme established in 2021 to fund working capital and investments for businesses impacted by Brexit and COVID-19 (sbci.gov.ie/products/brexit-impact-loan-scheme-bils). BILS is demand-led, with loans issued as applications are lodged by various business sectors. However, my Department’s funding ensures that 40% of the overall fund is available for farmers, fishers and food businesses. 2,223 eligibility applications have been approved in total under BILS, of which 1,200 to the value of approximately €141.7m have been sanctioned. Of these 1,200 sanctioned loans, 596 with a value of €48.6m (32%) relate to farmers and 97 with a value of €17.5m (12%) relate to food businesses. To date, no loan applications have been approved or issued to fishers under the BILS.
The details requested are as follows.
|
Funding from DAFM to SBCI
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Total potential loan value
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Number of loans issued to farmers
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Total value of loans issued to farmers
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Average value of loans issued to farmers
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Loans to farmers approved but yet to be drawn
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Total potential value of loans yet to be made
|
|
€11m
|
€126m*
|
596
|
€48.6m
|
€81,543
|
383
|
€59.9m
|
* 40% of €315 million available fund.
SBCI advise that they do not collect information on the number of applications refused.
