Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

These priorities are fully in line with the commitments made by the Government in the programme for Government and I am fully determined these commitments will be delivered.

As part of the process of developing my strategy for the negotiations, I and my Department meet on an ongoing basis representatives of the various interested parties in the agriculture and agrifood sectors to discuss the latest developments and to share information. In that context, I note the demands from certain quarters for a detailed analysis of the impact of the current proposals on Irish agriculture.

My Department has done a huge amount of detailed analysis of the issues within the WTO talks since the outset of the negotiations and this has been done on a continuous and sometimes daily basis. As standard practice, we carry out assessments of the various negotiating proposals that emerge in the negotiations. This analysis covers a large number of different scenarios and their impacts on the different agricultural sectors. In particular, the analysis evaluates the levels of import protection for individual products under the various different tariff cut scenarios that have been proposed thus far in the negotiations. It provides a basis for assessing the impact of such cuts and the relative benefits of seeking sensitive product status to mitigate their effects. Much of the analysis has been discussed with the farming and processing sectors. One of the primary reasons for establishing the WTO consultative committee was to ensure full engagement, consultation and discussion with all stakeholders on the potential impacts of the ongoing negotiations.

As I stated previously to the House, I am not convinced it would be appropriate for me to publicly release all the analysis available. I believe this to be a reasonable and prudent approach given the critical point we are at. I do not want to undermine in any way my negotiating position and I do not believe that anyone in this House would wish to undermine Ireland's position in the negotiations. I have already indicated that I and my officials are available to brief the Opposition, on a confidential basis, on the sensitive products issue and other key issues in regard to impact analysis.

I note that a number of Deputies, including the Leader of the Opposition, referred to the possibility of Ireland using its veto to stop the proposals in their tracks. This is, in my view, premature and defeatist talk.

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