Mr. Brendan Crosse:

Yes, of course. TAMS is there for infrastructure and things like that. In New Zealand, however, they have a programme called Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures, SFFF, which is for companies that are trying to take on aspirational or transformational projects for primary level products. Under that programme, the department works with industry and co-funds projects. In our case, as a start-up business, it would be great if we could do a genetics programme, develop milk recording systems, import different breeds and do more work on product development. All of these things are akin to what Enterprise Ireland does for food technology and agricultural technology companies and across the SME sector but the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine does not have an equivalent section. I have seen the impact of the SFFF programme in New Zealand and all of the different land uses that have been developed. They have 700,000 farmed deer, a goat milk industry, an A2 milk sector, a manuka honey industry and a wine industry. In 1985 there was no wine industry in New Zealand but now it generates NZ$1.5 billion. The same is true of the kiwi fruit; 30 years ago there was no kiwi fruit industry in New Zealand but now Zespri is a global company. In contrast, new primary industries in Ireland do not really have a support mechanism within the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.