Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

That is a very good question, Chairman. We fully support Food Wise 2025 and when we were in government, we wrote Food Harvest 2020. That was done not only as a blueprint for the development of agriculture, but it was done in a pre-Brexit environment. It set targets and set out the actions required to achieve those targets in the context of a pre-Brexit environment. If those targets are still the objective, and I think they should be, that is all the more reason that it should be revised in order to decide how those targets can be achieved in an environment and in a scenario where we are actually facing Brexit. There is no doubt but that it impacts on the agricultural sector in almost every way, so the idea that we would continue with a plan which does not take into account the impact of Brexit does not make sense. Certainly it should be revised with a view to how it should accommodate and deal with that challenge. The Chairman's point is very valid on that.