36 Mr. L. Burke asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if he will introduce a scheme of financial assistance for family farm pig producers. [10977/99]

Important measures to alleviate the problems in the pig sector have already been taken by me. In September 1998 I succeeded in gaining agreement from the EU Commission for the introduction of an aids to private storage scheme, under which EU funding is provided for the storage of pigmeat for a maximum period of six months. The scheme is still running and to date over 285,000 tonnes of pigmeat have been temporarily removed from the market throughout the Community. Ireland has over 2,000 tonnes of pigmeat in storage under this scheme.

I also secured substantial increases on a number of occasions in the level of export refunds, including an increase of 75 per cent for certain pigmeat cuts to Russia. The latest of these increases came in February 1999 when I secured an export refund increase ranging from 47 per cent to 80 per cent for certain processed products for the Russian market. These increases have been of considerable help to exporters.

In conjunction with a number of other member states, I am continuing to press for further EU action to help the situation for producers. This action includes improved market support as well as measures related to supply control. The issue was raised at a recent meeting of the pigmeat management committee.