Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 28 June 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Consolidation in Horticultural Grower Numbers: Discussion

Photo of Michael FitzmauriceMichael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Mr. McCormack spoke about the number of people who have left the industry. There have been meetings with the Minister. Are there forward plans? We should have learned lessons with regard to the war in Ukraine and food security. Does the Department have a plan to encourage people to get into the industry? Does it have a pathway forward whereby we will avoid realising someday that, having lost all the people who produce the product in this country and being reliant on someone else, it then does not come in? In the negotiations with the Department, is any common sense being used to entice or mollycoddle people to get into it?