Mr. Aidan O'Driscoll:

The ending of the milk quota is one of the greatest opportunities ever facing the Irish agrifood sector. I said in my introductory remarks that we had 170,000 people employed in the agrifood sector and that we had reached record exports of €10.5 billion. That is before the removal of the milk quotas. The opportunity arising for this country from the removal of milk quotas is absolutely staggering. It is an enormous opportunity. The Food Harvest 2020 committee estimated that we could increase production by 50% by 2020. Right now what the dairy processors are telling me is that we are heading in that direction. Milk prices are low at the moment and there is significant concern about that. Nevertheless, our dairy farmers are gearing up and all of the indications are that milk production will grow very rapidly.

One core estimate has been done of the potential employment aspects. It was carried out by an independent group chaired by a senior person from Teagasc. The group came up with a figure of 25,000 jobs on average if all of the Food Harvest 2020 targets were met. About 15,000 of those related to the dairy increase. The Deputy will know about another study carried out by the Cork Institute of Technology which estimated the impact in Cork alone of 4,000 jobs. We are currently awaiting the report of the agri-strategy 2025. A committee of the industry carries out ten-year forward strategies every five years and these are done with the support of the Department. We await that strategy which we expect to issue in early July. It will look forward to 2025 and will push out another five years. I have no doubt that there will be employment numbers in that strategy.