Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

I reject every comment and submission the Deputy has made. He is making allegations that are totally without foundation. Obviously, Fine Gael has changed policy in recent years in that, when Bord Glas was amalgamated with Bord Bia, the party vehemently opposed the proposal. Now it is advocating a greater rationalisation of organisations. In recent years, Bord Bia has undertaken excellent work and it is being carried out both directly by the Department in funding product development, research and innovation and by the development agencies. More than €300 million has been allocated in the national development plan towards food-related initiatives. A very substantial portion of that allocation has already been drawn down.

We talked earlier in reply to Deputy Sargent's questions on the potato sector. The Department has provided very substantial funding towards research, innovation, provision of new facilities and marketing of products. The programmes in place are successful and are bringing about real improvements and generating additional employment.

The Deputy is misrepresenting the report on enterprise strategy too, which did not make recommendations that were food-specific. It made recommendations regarding the general competitiveness and workings of the economy. In my constituency last week, I spoke to several people involved in the artisan and speciality food sector. One thing they mentioned to me was that recently the decrease in insurance costs had been an extremely positive development for such projects, really making them competitive and helping them achieve the scale of costs they desire.

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