Ms Tara McCarthy:

Regarding the bigger picture, this has been a challenging year for everybody, with ways of working that we would have expected to undertake when we presented our plans and programmes to our board last November compared with what we could actually do being dramatically different. However, we were not sitting at home, looking out the window and wondering what was happening either. We pivoted with regard to how we did our business. We invested differently. Many trade fairs that we planned to go to were cancelled. We had already undertaken a trade mission in February and had planned another three throughout the year but we were grounded.

We have invested in virtual trade missions. We do not believe it is a replacement for the real thing but it is much better than doing nothing. We have invested in lead generation to identify who the buyers are and profile the buyers to know who we are targeting. We have invested in communicating with those buyers so that they know that Ireland is open for business. We have invested in getting those buyers to come to a virtual platform to meet Irish industry. We are all experiencing a different world of engaging virtually rather than physically. We trained companies about how to make a virtual pitch. One normally gets a feel for a room but cannot do that virtually. How does one create virtual pitches and what are the key messages that one gives? How does one bring Irish agriculture to life when doing it on a video or digitally? We have invested significantly in that to create the assets that the Irish food industry needs, whether in dairy, seafood or any other sector. We have experimented in that space, attending virtual trade fairs and creating our own virtual trade missions.

Every time we changed a penny in how that fund was allocated, we brought it to our board to ensure that we had the rigour of governance behind it. We never looked to squirrel away money or such but always went to the board when there was a change of priority or what was available to us, and a resulting change in activities or programmes. I confirm that in every board meeting from April to December, we came back all the time with new ways of working and new platforms. In November, we did five days of virtual trade missions. We were the first organisation in the State to deliver virtual ministerial trade missions throughout the world. We did virtual top-to-top meetings and had global trade meetings with our global customers. We have substituted for being unable to go to market in our ways of working and invested accordingly to have the assets to do that. I hope I have addressed the budget movements over Covid.

Looking at our productivity and how we are looking to return value for money, we have strict governance to ensure there is no opportunity for Bord Bia to hide from any key performance indicator or any deliverable. We have five subsidiary boards and a main board which can interrogate our accounts and activities, receive advance plans of everything that we do, and receive presentations of what we have achieved and its impact. We are proud of the productivity of the organisation with regard to the key performance indicators that we work towards, every part of which is shared with our board, on which there is significant farmer and industry representation.

We recruit for every trade fair. One rule that we have for trade fairs is that only Irish products go on a Bord Bia stand. If a company wants to sell a product that does not come from Ireland, we would prefer that it is not on our stand. It is simple.

I have a question about the future, outside Covid and Brexit. We do not know; it is crystal ball stuff. Will Bord Bia be publishing a new smart food strategy in 2021 for the future and will it bring it before the committee at some stage so we can have a outline of what is proposed? As Ms McCarthy said, we are in a completely new space. We are living life as we have never lived it previously. Virtual communication might or might not be the way forward. Time will tell. When does Ms McCarthy propose to have the new marketing ideas put forward?