Declan Breathnach (Louth, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses. It is great to see a presentation such as this. I remember attending some of the first consultative forums relating to the issues that will be affected. That was at an early stage and food was clearly an issue. I remember it being played down but it has clearly come to the fore with people such as the witnesses raising the core issues. I come from a Border constituency and am too long in the tooth not to remember the more recent horse meat scandal, foot and mouth disease in the Cooley Peninsula, BSE on an ongoing basis and even the reintroduction of a case last week in Scotland. Every time we see this, it reminds us of the importance of food safety. I acknowledge the witnesses' role in food safety and public health and nutrition programmes. That comes on the basis of having spent 35 years as a primary school teacher and seeing the programmes that the witnesses have brought into schools and that they have brought home to families.

The witnesses mentioned barriers to effective working. The idea was that there would be no barriers. Barriers or potential barriers seem to be the order of the day. The breakout sessions that came through the consultative forum included the agrifood people. To what degree are food producers contacting the witnesses for advice? That feeds into the local enterprise offices, LEOs. Many have started to realise lately that they have to make an effort and make changes or to be ready for changes.

I raised the subjects of external activities and administrative issues at the previous meeting and Mr. Dolan referred to them. I am interested in his take on the tendering process. How do the witnesses see the ability for people to tender for food production working if there is a real Brexit? Will there be a reintroduction of a British standard as opposed to the European standard that we have? While we all want to see this dovetail and it is to be hoped everybody will sing off the same hymn sheet, there will always be a difficulty. To what degree has that been examined?

I wish the witnesses well in their endeavours. The document they presented is typical of what many other companies, small or big, have to do, to be ready and to make sure that nothing is missed. I remember being pooh-poohed by a Minister when I flagged this as something which needed to be looked at seriously, and I am glad the witnesses have taken it seriously.