Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the delegation and thank the members for their report. It is a bit unfortunate that it seems to be a similar submission to one they made previously. It appears to have fallen on deaf ears, and as a new Member here I find that very disappointing from the committee's point of view. It needs to be raised with the Department that there was a comprehensive submission report put in to the Department and it seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

Most of what I wanted to say has been mentioned already. That is the danger of not getting in early at these meetings. There seems to be a litany of problems. Margin will always be an issue, in agriculture and non-agriculture. Even if things are going well the margin will not be good enough. Margin aside, if one of the issues raised already which prohibits the uptake of organic farming or is a big inhibiting factor for those who are established organic could be prioritised, what would that one issue be?

To go back to the issue of processors and the exorbitant increase on the value of the product from the farm gate to the fork, what relationship is there with the processors? Beef and lamb have been mentioned. Could there be further promotion of organic, finished, value-added produce, which would in turn help the processes? Is the organic finished product being promoted enough? If there was some system or form of adequate promotion of the finished value-added product, could that in turn help the cause down the line?