Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

We use our embassies for maintaining and opening up dialogue with existing and potential agrifood markets. When we succeeded in re-opening the Chinese market for Irish pork products, I complimented the staff in our Beijing embassy. We also use the support available to us from Bord Bia, Enterprise Ireland and other statutory agencies.

There are different views on the costs of a 50% increase in milk production. Teagasc is still examining certain aspects of it such as lengthening the dairy season which would in turn ease the demand for additional capacity. There is no point in having top-class processing facilities that are idle for a considerable part of the year.

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