Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)

I thank the witnesses for coming in. I wish Ms McPhillips the best of luck in her new role. She will need it. The first thing she might do is get rid of Mercosur. Any time there is change, there is a concern. I am 100% opposed to it because I have been listening to farmers up and down the country and can understand their concerns. I will not stay too long on this because Ms McPhillips has been grilled on it for the past hour. The concern is the standard of the beef. Some 99,000 tonnes of beef will come into the country. Will it be up to the standard of the beef we have here in light of the cost of producing beef in this country? We have a great thing going at the moment. We have never seen the trade better placed here. Are we going to upset that? If we do, it would be a total disaster. I am delighted Ms McPhillips said a support fund will be put in place. That would need to be a condition. If we plough ahead with this, my belief is that support fund will be needed.

I do not want Ms McPhillips going back over what she has said a number of times. We are well aware that farmers have been affected by TB. Some of those farmers are suffering in a major way now and we do not want them to go through the same thing in the future. If this deal is going to go ahead, make sure good conditions are put in place to support farmers in our country.

Ms McPhillips's referred at the end of her opening statement to the EU having many free trade agreements in place and that is in talks with third countries. Will she give us an update on what they are about and what is going on there?