Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail)
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I am not suggesting that. My concern, which is unconnected to the Brexit issue which, is that when I look at the charts the Department has given us, at the start of 2009, ten years ago, we were importing roughly 6 million tonnes but were exporting eight million tonnes. Ireland was exporting more foodstuffs than it was importing ten years ago. This is the myth we have all lived on. In the last ten year - this has nothing to do with Brexit - the level of imports of foodstuffs has increased at a much higher rate. In fact, it has more than doubled in the last decade. The product, not the price, of our exports has only gone from approximately 4 million tonnes to 7 million tonnes, an increase of 3 million tonnes, whereas our imports have gone from 6 million tonnes to 13 million tonnes. The public is not aware that in the last decade, Ireland has changed in respect of how it deals with food and in the last decade - this has nothing to do with Brexit - we have far surpassed our food consumption in terms of imports as opposed to what we export. That is the only point I am making. This is something of a surprise to me.