Mr. Brendan Gleeson:

I agree with the Chairman's assessment about the lessons to be learned from this. It would have been helpful if the Department had been out earlier promoting the scheme. It was important we engaged with participants because there was much misinformation going around about the scheme. Sometimes, these communications are not best done in the heat of a mass meeting. We could have obviated that by being out ourselves before we allowed that to happen. I accept that critique and it is perfectly reasonable.

Apart from the climate change aspect to the scheme, there is one other element. I do not wish to overemphasise it but we have positioned ourselves as a food producing nation in a particular space in terms of quality, environment and so forth. Apart from assisting us in terms of the climate change debate, this is a useful tool in the context of the market. Large multiple retailers have corporate social responsibility strategies and they all want to get their produce from sustainable sources. This programme is a world first in that regard. It is part of the Origin Green message that Aidan Cotter, chief executive of Bord Bia, has told the committee about before. It is multifunctional in a way. It is a pity that, in the context of the rural development programme regulations, it became a victim of its own versatility. It ticked so many boxes in the rural development regulations but it was difficult to find a specific niche in an article for it. That is where the difficulty was.