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

The Department is a producer of policy and that policy is to try to advance all of the various sectors. Pressure was put on a few minutes ago regarding whether the Department would invest in something that was not viable. It was quite an unfair question because what we really need to do here is to try to make the sector viable and work together to develop and support a sector to become viable. That is what we need to see happen.

We are speaking about support and decisions the Minister will make on what support will be put in place for the sector. That is the Minister's decision. I often hear politicians being very quick to blame Europe for things that go wrong here. Sometimes at this committee, people are very quick to blame the Department and everyone else for things that go wrong. The person who is responsible primarily for putting the supports in place and doing the policy is the Minister. It is the people who are elected and not, in fairness, the people from the Department or Teagasc. It is unfair to come in here putting pressure on them. They are not the people who are responsible for this. Yes, they collaborate and work together to try to produce a vision for moving forward, which is what Food Vision is, but, in fairness, it is the Minister and the people who are elected who do the policy. The people who elect them need to look at what policy there has been in the past and what failures there have been in the past. If they keep electing them, they can expect the same failings. That is my political speech over.

I was taken by what Teagasc said about profitability and the most profitable crops being protein crops, yet they are the ones for which there does not seem to be as high a market.

I would like to tease that out a little, consider the what and why of it, and ask how we can develop that a little more. One of the things we see is that many of the proteins are being imported for feed, etc., from other countries. I take it that is because they are cheaper for the farmer to purchase and use.