Mr. Leo Clancy:

Companies are aware. It is coming and is in the consciousness of companies that they will be accountable for these things. They are aware in that regard. We do not have those compacts in the same way as other countries but we are smaller and we can connect. If we can get the right discussions going, we will have an impact. I met the head of a large dairy last week which is looking at how to reduce methane and other emissions within their supply chain. Although they work mostly in respect of farmers and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, we work with them and will work with them on innovation projects. I invited those companies in the meat and dairy sector to come back with innovation and multi-party projects that we might get behind, even from a research and development point of view. There is some very novel stuff we can do. The Deputy made some points about labelling and the circular economy. We have supported some excellent companies in that space including Nutritics on the food labelling side. It is one of the leading companies in carbon assessment of food content. I would say it is world-leading in its field. It is a high-potential start-up company that we are very excited about in terms of characterisation of carbon. We also supported FoodCloud with its innovation efforts and we are very close to it. We are also working on early-stage innovation.

In conjunction with that, we try to bring them to our other clients. Last week, I met a methane reduction company with potential for both slurry-based methane reduction and digestion-based methane reduction. I have already introduced them to at least one large dairy processor - it might be an interesting concept for them to try. We have huge potential to bring these compacts together, albeit we do not have the external statements other countries might have. I am very positive on this. I will ask Ms Toomey if she has anything to add shortly.

In terms of the circular economy and packaging, we support a centre called CIRCULÉIRE at the Irish Manufacturing Research centre. It is entirely dedicated to circular manufacturing technologies. We have supported, through the Dairy Processing Technology Centre and Meat Technology Ireland, that a condition of re-funding those two technology centres has been that they bring sustainability into their research programmes in a significant way. Their members include all the meat and dairy processors.