Pre-Production Facility (PPF)

The Pre-Production Facility (PPF) is a short bridging loan from Screen Ireland (Fís Éireann) that closes the cash-flow gap between a Screen Ireland production-funding offer being made and the financing pack closing. The producer needs to start spending on pre-production — heads-of-department deals, location surveys, casting, design, schedule work — before the financiers' funds are available, and PPF covers that window.

It is not additional production funding. It's a bridging instrument repaid in full at financial closing.

Eligibility

PPF is only available where:

• The production has already received a Screen Ireland principal production-loan offer — the PPF rides on top of that, not as an alternative
• All commercial terms on the principal loan are agreed, including the Screen Ireland recoupment position — see Recoupment Corridor
• The production is proven to be fully and satisfactorily financed — the financing pack is complete, just not closed
• The production is in the process of commencing pre-production — not earlier, not later
• If the film is to be bonded, a detailed Letter of Intent from the approved completion guarantor has been issued — see Completion bond

Project-type eligibility is narrower than the principal-loan family. PPF is for:

• Fiction: Irish Production
• TV Drama Production

Documentary (feature / series / co-pro), TV Animation Production, and Fiction: Creative Co-Production are excluded from PPF. Those projects either close fast enough not to need the bridge, or use a different mechanism. Confirm against the application form before assuming eligibility.

The cap calculation

Three numbers, with the binding cap being the smallest:

The binding cap is min(25% × SI principal, €150,000), further capped by the matching financiers' contribution. A €500,000 SI principal-loan offer maps to a maximum PPF of €125,000 (25% × €500k); a €1,000,000 principal-loan offer maps to a maximum PPF of €150,000 (the absolute cap kicks in). On a €2,000,000 principal-loan offer the PPF is still €150,000.

The 1.5% admin fee

PPF carries a 1.5% administration fee on the advance, payable at financial closing alongside the principal repayment. A €150,000 PPF advance produces a closing-day repayment of:

• €150,000 principal
• €2,250 admin fee
• Total: €152,250 repayable from the financing-close waterfall

The admin fee is fixed — it does not vary by how long the PPF was outstanding.

Repayment

The PPF is repaid in full at financial closing. There is no part-repayment schedule and no extension mechanism. Financial closing is the trigger event.

If financial closing slips and the producer needs to extend the PPF window, that is a re-application, not an extension — and Screen Ireland's appetite to renew is not guaranteed.

Supporting documents required at application

Six documents on the application form, in addition to the form itself:

1. Co-financing offer letters from every other financier on the matched bridging pack
2. Collection / waterfall agreement (or LOI for the collection agent)
3. Completion-bond LOI from the approved guarantor
4. Cashflow breakdown showing the pre-production spend the PPF will support
5. Other cashflow sources covering pre-production expenditure
6. Repayment timeline aligned to anticipated financial-closing date

The pre-application conversation

Screen Ireland does not consider PPF applications without a prior conversation with the Head of Business and Legal Affairs (currently Cian McElhone). The date of that conversation is requested on the application form. Producers who submit without recording the prior consult are typically asked to defer and have the conversation first.

Submit to the SI Business and Legal Affairs team email aliases recorded on the application form cover line.

The numbers worth remembering

How Togra supports this

The Pre-Production Facility surface on every Screen Ireland-funded fiction or TV drama production runs the live cap calculator from the SI principal-loan offer on file, flags an amber strip when declared match-funding falls below the request, and auto-computes the 1.5% admin fee plus closing-day repayment total. The repayment lands as a marker on the project Cashflow page so it survives the financing-close planning. The six-document checklist mirrors the SI form page 3, and the generated application DOCX pre-fills from Company Profile + project crew + the saved PPF inputs with the contact emails baked into the cover line.