Sustainable Part B

• Improve hygiene, health or working conditions, and/or,
• Improve the quality of fishery products or adds value to fishery products, and/or,
• Eliminate discards or deal with unwanted catches, and/or,
• Improve size or species selectivity, and/or,
• Reduce the impact of fishing gear on the ecosystem including the seabed or on non-target species, and/or,
• Equipment to prevent by-catch of mammals and birds

A list of potentially eligible equipment is contained in the application form.

Who is Eligible

The scheme is restricted to the owners of commercial fishing vessels which must be registered on the Irish Fishing Boat Register at the time of grant claim before payment can be made.

Fleet Improvement Projects provide grant aid to the owners of commercial fishing vessels for the purchase of capital equipment. The equipment must achieve one of the following objectives and be listed in the application form:

• Improve hygiene, health or working conditions, and/or,
• Improve the quality of fishery products or adds value to fishery products, and/or,
• Eliminate discards or deal with unwanted catches, and/or,
• Improve size or species selectivity, and/or,
• Reduce the impact of fishing gear on the ecosystem including the seabed or on non-target species, and/or,
• Prevent by-catch of mammals and birds

The scheme does not apply to the following: (a) Operations increasing the fishing capacity
of a vessel or equipment increasing the ability of a vessel to find fish; (b) Construction of new fishing vessels or the importation of fishing vessels; (c) Exploratory fishing. While more than one application may be made in respect of a vessel under the terms of this scheme, under no circumstances will grant aid be provided to replace any given item grant aided within the previous three years.

Amounts Granted

The basic grant aid range for Projects is 30%, to 50% depending on the equipment type/heading.

For vessels qualifying as solely Small Scale Coastal Fisheries These rates range from 30% – 80% depending on the equipment type / heading.

A grant aid cap of €150,000 per vessel applies over the Programme period from July 2016 to date.