Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

Teagasc will participate. I do not know whether its representatives were present at the last meeting but I presume they were and I will clarify that for the Deputy. We want all relevant stakeholders to participate. We would be pleased to keep the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food fully briefed and informed and we welcome its input.

A large number of issues must be dealt with by the high level group and by our consultative group in respect of the contractual relationship between producers and processors to strengthen the bargaining power of producers, transparency for producers, the industry and consumers, information on markets and innovation on research because things will change and evolve. This is a major area and one in which we encourage all stakeholders to be involved who are prepared to come along willingly and participate actively and constructively.

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