Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Most of the funding will actually come through Science Foundation Ireland. The national research prioritisation exercise, NRPE, was published in 2012 and recommended that the majority of the approximately €500 million annual public spend on scientific research should be targeted at 14 priority investment areas, at least five of which are relevant to the agrifood and marine sectors. This reflects the priority the Government is giving to these sectors.

Nobody needs to tell me about tillage prices. We have had two very good harvests in terms of quality, moisture and yield, but the prices have been lousy.

That is the reality and the reason is that we have had very good harvests all over the world and there is a lot of grain available.

That is also the reason for the over-supply in recent months in the international dairy markets. We have had cheap grain for two years in a row and most of the world's milk is produced on the back of grain. That led to an increase in dairy production which drove down dairy prices. We are starting to come out the other side of that because there is drought happening now in certain parts of the world. That means that we will not have the kind of price collapse in the dairy market that some were predicting - or at least we think not; we cannot be sure. We are trying to do things for the tillage sector, particularly under TAMS. I spoke to the committee before about trying to encourage more arable farmers to use organic fertilisers. Building storage facilities on tillage farms is somewhat counter-intuitive for farmers who do not have any livestock but it gives them the option of being able to buy slurry when the price is right. They can use it when they need to in a much more targeted way if they have storage capacity.

On the issue of Teagasc staff, we have actually increased the numbers. We have increased the amount of teaching staff Teagasc is allowed to employ because the agricultural colleges are all full. I was in Mountbellew Agricultural College last week, which has 340 students enrolled at the moment and is by far the most it has ever had. It was set up in 1904 and is the oldest agricultural college in the country. That situation is reflected across the other colleges too. It is not too long ago that people were talking about closing down Mountbellew and other colleges like Gurteen but I am glad to say that those colleges are thriving now.

The Department has sanctioned over 50 mission-critical appointments in Teagasc since 2009. We do seek - and receive - permission from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to make appointments. That Department needs some convincing but I believe we will see a loosening of the moratorium on recruitment as-----