Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I am conscious - this issue arises regularly - that the Minister does not have a role in the market. The market dictates and demands. However, I would put it to him that a significant amount of taxpayers' money goes into marketing Irish food produce around the world through Bord Bia. When taxpayers' money is being used to market food, very often the people who make the most money from that food are not the primary producers but the people in the middle such as the processors and the supermarkets. Is there not a responsibility to ensure that the primary producer gets a fair price? We all know the interests of the consumer must be looked after but the interests of the primary producer must also be looked after. A significant amount of public money is going into this industry. It is going directly to farmers but it also goes into the industry through marketing all this food and ensuring that there is an adequate price but that the latter does not go back to the primary producer and certainly not to the farmer from Drumshanbo who sends them the weanling. Such a farmer does not see it, which is the problem. I put it to the Minister that there must be a level of responsibility in terms of State funding for all of this, but the primary producer is not getting a return.