Paraic Brady (Fine Gael)

I, too, congratulate the Cathaoirleach on his elevation.

As everybody knows, I am deeply rooted in the agricultural sector and have been so for many years. I am passionate about food protection and protecting our farmers and rural Ireland. One thing I would like to see with this committee, and I have seen it in the past, is that we bring in people who have the skills and knowledge of certain aspects of the agricultural sector, whether it be organics, beef production, lamb production or forestry, and that we listen to people who have the expertise in these areas.

There are certain things we will agree on and there are other things that we will not agree on but at the end of the day we have been elected to do the best we can for the sector itself. That is very important here. Food and food production must be protected at all costs. In Ireland, and in our environment, we are so dependent on agriculture. It is the number one product we have here that Ireland is dependent on. Whether it is Dublin, Galway or rural Ireland, it is the one sector where everybody, whether it is the processors, the shopkeeper or the small farmer, gets money out of it. Without agriculture, this country would not exist. In the middle of the previous recession, it was agriculture that took us out of the recession, with what we produced, what we exported and all the rest.

This is the number one committee in these buildings at this moment in time as it is very important to our whole economic structure in Ireland. I look forward to working with everybody here. We have a vast amount of work to get through. There is forestry, GAEC and CAP reform. That is without even mentioning the environmental aspect. There is a huge body of work that we need to get through here. I hope we can really and truly get through it for the best of what is available to us coming from Europe.