Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My first question is as follows. The Minister said the value of Ireland's food and drink exports grew by 4% during 2014 and was €3.2 billion higher than 2009. Perhaps he would develop on that theme. Was that caused by volume or price increases? The second issue is germane to this debate. What policy decisions, particularly those in regard to expenditure, had most effect in increasing the value? If we knew that, we could then put more money towards those particular policies. The Minister mentioned a massive increase in dairying, 50% in volume. Will this be achieved by getting more milk from the same number of hectares or by people swapping land usage to dairying from other farming activities? Has any analysis been carried out by the Department on the possible impact of this on other sectors of the farming economy? The upside is obvious but the downside needs to be looked at if there is to be a massive shift of land usage. Given that 85% of rural development schemes are being paid out this year, will that affect the Estimates with 100% of the money on the RDP being paid between now and the end of the year? I have one other question. An interesting document was published yesterday, Building on Recovery: Infrastructure and Capital Investment 2016-2021. It provides, in a table on page 21, the agriculture, food and the marine Exchequer capital envelope 2016-2021, €198 million; 2016 - €217 million; 2017 - €208 million; 2018 - €208 million, 2019 - €208 million; 2020 - €208 million; and 2021 - €208 million.