Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 23 January 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Roles, Responsibilities and Key Programmes of Bord Bia: Discussion

3:30 pm

Ms Tara McCarthy:

On zero grazing, we have not heard any concern from the market yet with regard to any impact that may have on the taste of butter. If there is, we feed that back to the producers to ensure they do not lose an opportunity with regard to positioning of Ireland and its butter and the creaminess that butter is well known for, particularly in its primary market in Germany. However, it is not something that has been raised with us by the market, or by the marketeers.

With regard to the budget, obviously, that is a rock and an hard place question. What I can say is that our budgets are given to us on an annual basis. The plans we have in place to deliver that budget are adequate for this year. However, the Deputy Cahill's question was on whether we have enough money to solve Brexit. Given the challenges Brexit presents to us, the only answer I can give the Deputy is that I do not know because we do not know the job to be done yet. When we know the job to be done, we will clearly put a business case to Government to see if it can invest in the job to be done. To date, we have received a positive to any request we have made to Government.