Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In response to the Deputy's question on Bord Bia, if one takes the EU funds of €1.6 million and the €2 million extra, the cumulative figure is €4.5 million above the 2016 provisional figures. It is significant. I have no doubt that if we had more money Bord Bia could spend it. However, in terms of a start on the challenge we face, that is good. The staff of Bord Bia do a tremendous job.

I engage with the industry in all its manifestations, both inside and outside the farm gate, farm organisations and the representative bodies of the processing sector. I have not had any single one of them say what the Deputy has said about Bord Bia. The interesting thing, as I have said to Deputy McConalogue before, I have done sectoral dialogues on Brexit with the dairy, beef, sheep, pork, poultry, grain, forestry, prepared consumer foods, fishery sectors and continue to dialogue with all of them. I have been on trade missions with them and I have not heard what the Deputy has said.

I have made the point that Brexit is an enormous challenge. As for hanging one's coat on the issue that the Brexit team comprises three people, I repeat there are 3,000 staff in my Department and every one of them is a critical player in the context of Brexit. Anybody who goes to an international meeting, anybody who is involved in the agencies such as Bord Bia or BIM is a player in terms of Brexit. When we go to market - and part of the strategy is to diversify, part is to secure the foothold we have in existing markets - anybody who is involved in quality assurance inspection or in ensuring that the produce we take to market, be they farmers or Department officials, is critical to the Brexit effort. To make the flippant point that the Brexit unit is just three people is to miss the point about the scale of the challenge and the scale of the Department's response. The response of the departmental officials at all levels has been phenomenal. Their commitment has been exemplary.

The high-level Brexit unit is involved strategically in liaising with the Department of the Taoiseach, in engaging with Michel Barnier and his team and is involved in bilateral meetings in which I am involved with various ministerial colleagues across the European Union. It is a complex response of which they are at the helm in terms of strategising, looking at the implications and scoping out the scale of the problem at a high technical level.

The market access unit, although technically not the Brexit unit, plays a critical part. It is headed by an assistant secretary and is an equally important part of our strategy. The market access unit engages with countries all over the world. We trade with 180 different countries and are knocking on other doors to get into new markets for various different products. That unit engages with our ambassadorial diplomatic team, at a technical, veterinarian and peer-to-peer level in respect of ministries in other countries. A phenomenal amount of work goes on in the market access unit.

These are challenging times and there is a provision in the budget for the Department to take on 200 additional staff across the Department. They will be deployed into strategic areas that will be identified as needing additional resources. I have no doubt that the skill set required in those areas to meet these challenges will be looked at. That is always something that is under review. It is important to point out that regardless of whether one is a Department inspector in a meat plant or a person involved in on-farm quality assurance inspections or operating in the Brexit unit or in the market access unit or anywhere in between, because the agriculture industry exports 90% of what it produces, everybody in this Department is focused on making sure that we can stand over that product. Fortunately we can. We have a great reputation and that is due to all those people, Bord Bia, Origin Green and the phenomenal effort that they put into it. We are never resting on our laurels. We are never saying we have it cracked; it is constantly under review. It is particularly under review in the context of the Brexit challenge. It has got additional resources but it is the overarching issue that informs every single thing that the Department does at this stage. I think it is through the collaborative approach, that is, the close collaboration between the agencies I have mentioned, the Department, the farm organisations, the individual farmers and the industry in all its manifestations that we will be able to meet this challenge. In my view, this challenge is unprecedented. I have gone on the record of saying there is no upside in this for the agrifood sector. We may poach a financial or an EU institution but one will not make a broker out of a beef farmer if the industry goes down. We in the Department are fighting might and main to protect the interests of the industry, to protect the markets we have in the UK, to negotiate the best possible outcome but equally are not anticipating anything in terms of those outcomes and therefore are looking at additional markets as well. It is a whole-of-Department and a whole-of-Government approach. It is not three people, it is not 20 additional staff in Bord Bia, it is all of that and a great deal more.