John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

Commissioner Mandelson and the WTO talks have very little to do with the CAP health check. The Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Deputy Mary Coughlan, has raised all the issues and concerns relevant to Irish farmers, such as simplification, modulation, milk quotas and market management mechanisms. She has appointed two groups to advise her, one to look at proposed changes to the health check and the other to act as the dairy consultative committee. The Minister is being well advised on the difficulties farmers face and the need for changes to the health check. From a political point of view, talks will begin in Slovenia in late May.

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