Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the representatives from the IFA for their contributions.

I particularly thank Mr. Kevin Kinsella, Mr. John Bryan and Mr. Pat Smith of the IFA for their presentation. We had a very interesting discussion and may have gone outside our remit in discussing trade promotion. It is always good to discuss these issues with our urban members.

The food industry, food promotion and food exports are extremely important. As members will know from travelling abroad, our reputation abroad is at an all time high. I can assure the executive of the IFA that we will continue to support the expansion of the food sector in our travels, particularly in terms of trade promotion. Members of the committee will travel to Ghana in Africa in the next few weeks and we will examine trade promotion in that area. The agricultural sector that will come up for discussion given that it came up for discussion today when we met the Minister for Agriculture from Ethiopia where agriculture accounts for 46% of trade there. The products grown there such as coffee might be different from ours but trade works both ways. Our relationship with African countries, particularly the programme countries, is at an all time high. With Africa being a continent in which there is tremendous growth, with growth rates as high 10% during the past number of years, there are huge opportunities for exporting Irish food products there, as well as to countries in the Middle East. There are great opportunities for trade with the ASEAN countries, which we did not discuss today, those of Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam. That is the reason I asked the question about trade promotion in those countries and the value of trade missions there.

I thank the delegates for appearing before the committee. We are almost at the end of the task of preparing our report. The IFA's input will be very much part of that report because the food sector is very important to us. I thank the delegates for engaging with us and for the very interesting and wide-ranging discussion between the members and the delegates.

I propose we will now go into private session.