Tom Barry (Cork East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

When does the Minister see the Leader funding starting on the ground? An allocation of €28 million has been made for research and training. This is an important area. Does the Minister regard the allocation as sufficient? An allocation of €800,000 has been given for biofuel initiatives. What are these? Can we move on from the miscanthus disaster in the past? While we have heard much talk about prices in the dairy industry, the Minister must remember tillage is also undergoing problems with prices. Teagasc funding has increased from €1.08 million to €1.13 million.

It states here that this has to do with the increased cost of retirements. It seems terrible to be increasing the Vote yet getting no extra feet on the ground. I know it is a legacy issue, but when is the Minister considering net hiring of people into Teagasc?

The funding for the World Food Programme is kept the same at €9,960,000. Would it be possible for any of the milk or milk products that went over quota to go into that? I am just curious.

General legal expenses went from €2.5 million to €3.3 million. Can we have an outline of what these were? It is quite a significant increase, of around €800,000. Is there any breakdown of what these expenses are or are they kept private? I think that is on page 26.

Could the Minister give us guidelines on what sort of projects would be considered for the CEDRA fund, which is €1 million? There will be farmers and people who would like to diversify and would like to know these. Maybe they are already available but I am not aware of them.