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

The more companies there are such as the Senator's, the more a light is shone for others to follow. Other people say: "That could be me if I put the right plan in place." Four and a half years ago, Bord Bia had 350 companies on its books, but it is now helping approximately 750. That is an indication of what is happening in the small foods sector. Some of them are not small any more but are very much medium-sized companies with big growth plans. We have not seen too many Irish food companies go from medium to big in the past ten years, even in this growth period. There are glass ceilings that are very difficult to break through in terms of funding and the ability to put infrastructure in place to become the next Glanbia, Kerry Group or Greencore. We have to help companies make that jump.

The Senator's comments on the racing industry are welcome. The sales yesterday are an indication that spending money in this sector pays dividends, and we have managed to keep it going through a very difficult economic period.

I am a very big supporter of Origin Green, and I hope that by the end of next year, all Irish food and drinks companies will either be signed up to Origin Green or already in the programme. In this way, our €11 billion or €12 billion of exports will all be under an Origin Green banner, which represents a commitment to continuous improvement around stability and measuring, internationally and independently certified for credibility.

One of the areas in which this committee could do a lot more work with our Department is climate change. I am hugely frustrated by commentary we sometimes get across mainstream media platforms about agriculture being the big problem, which neglects to mention that Ireland is probably doing more in terms of climate change in agriculture than any other country in the world right now. Some 46,000 beef farms in Ireland are currently measuring carbon footprints in their herds with a carbon calculator. No other country in the world is even talking about that but we are doing it. All 17,000 of our dairy farmers have signed up, through their farming organisations, to a dairy sustainability scheme, for which they are not being paid. Virtually all of our food companies are either in Origin Green or have signed up to Origin Green. We are focusing on output and adding value but also on a sustainability journey that is measured and benchmarked as we go. It would be great if the committee focused on some of that to raise awareness of it, perhaps by bringing in some NGOs to talk about it.

The idea that Ireland needs to reduce its carbon footprint by simply producing less does not make sense from either a climate change or an economic perspective. On disease, we had a big step forward in relation to brucellosis recently when Northern Ireland achieved brucellosis-free status the week before the ploughing championships. We have managed now to do away with pre-movement testing of animals, which is great news for farmers North and South of the Border on a practical level. I acknowledge that there is a particular TB problem in Wicklow, which we think is linked to deer or badgers. The herd has a TB incidence of 4.92%, which is down from a high of 15.72% in 2010, but there is still an issue in Wicklow, which we need to keep working on. There has been huge progress in the number of reactors per thousand animals tested, which is now down to 5.19 from 8.85 in 2014. That is in Wicklow east. While there is a problem, there has also been a significant improvement in the numbers there. I think I have answered everything.