Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Creed is correct on the co-decision and the influence of the European Parliament. Some time ago officials at senior level within my Department met all our MEPs and gave them a full briefing on the Common Agricultural Policy discussion document. I hope to meet all the MEPs when I attend the next Council of Ministers meeting in February. In the meantime the rapporteur of one of the groups of the agriculture committee of the European Parliament will visit me, I think, next week to discuss this report. We intend to keep our MEPs fully briefed and to work with them very closely, and we want to do the same with the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

The assistant secretary general in charge of this division gave a detailed presentation to a Teagasc conference last week outlining the situation as it is evolving, the particular interests of other countries and the different models and how they would affect us, negatively or positively.

I would like to see the joint committee involved in that discussion as well. I thank the spokespersons who contributed and responded to my invitation last summer to send us a submission on the Common Agricultural Policy. Shortly, I will put together a consultative group representative of the industry to work along with us, at Department, Government, Oireachtas and European Parliament levels in what is an important issue for this country.

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