Ms Tara McCarthy:

There are two other matters, namely, organic and Connemara hill lamb. Obviously, one cannot market anything as organic unless it is certified, regardless of the process that it has gone through. One would, obviously, market it on its naturalness. We do a number of campaigns promoting lamb, and the particular markets which we have been looking to grow within that have been the French, German, Swedish and Swiss markets as we move our dependency away from the UK market and, in particular, the French market. It is in those newer markets that we are looking to create a premium for the product and to really market the naturalness of our product. We have been doing European campaigns as well in order to amplify the spend we have so that in partnership with the French and the UK we have been able to get funds from Europe to market European lamb and then within that, obviously, to have a position for Irish lamb.

Lamb, as a product this year, had a reasonably good finish to the year. While it had a very hard start to the year, it had a good summer within the pricing that it achieved but we would regularly work with industry to review our marketing efforts of lamb and to take guidance from industry. We are in consultation with industry at present in order to undertake a new meat strategy. We will look specifically at the products - again this is dictated by the challenges Brexit will pose for us - and at where the best places and the best value for Ireland Inc. will be in terms of its promotional campaigns. We are sitting down with industry, and in partnership with Meat Industry Ireland, as part of that stakeholder consultation to get their guidance and input as to where they believe the best bang for our buck will be achieved, as we look at the different positionings and marketing opportunities for Ireland, first, for quality assured lamb, and then for different opportunities for niches within that.

We were asked for an update on the Chinese market. Obviously, this is a Government decision. Ireland received a further inspection from the Chinese who have reported back. The feedback will go to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. I believe the committee might be meeting officials from the Department after this meeting. They will have seen this report and they are in dialogue with their Chinese counterparts with regard to some of the details but they have fed back to us that the overall tone of the report was positive.