Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

In regard to the latter part of Deputy Moynihan's question, one of the responses of the Commission on the auditors' report states:

The total level of quota renunciation estimated by the Commission is not based on the analysis of the profitability of individual companies but the result of the new macroeconomic conditions prevailing in sugar economics and the European Union, namely, the WTO panel decision and the increased access granted to certain sugar exporters.

The regime that existed at the time in regard to the sugar industry was put in place in 1968. The sugar quota was in existence before the milk quota. I do not know whether other quota regimes were introduced subsequently. The milk quota regime was introduced in 1984-85. Considerable pressure was put on the European Union to rationalise or reorganise the sugar quota regime prior to the discussions at the WTO at the end of December of that year.

It was the decision of individual companies to renounce the quota. The Commission did not decide it. Greencore made the decision to renounce the quota. In all the contributions made by the Tánaiste, who was the relevant Minister at the time, she outlined very strongly the history of the sugar industry in this country, its contribution from the point of view of farm incomes, the fact that it was an important crop from an agri-economic point of view and that it provided very valuable employment for those employed directly by the sugar company. Every aspect of those arguments were put as forcefully as possible to the Commission in Ireland's opposition to its proposals to restructure the quota regime.

As I said to Deputy Sherlock, when decision time came at those Council of Ministers meetings, we did not have enough people with us to have a blocking minority. The decision was going ahead. When a decision is going to go against one, there is a time to negotiate to get the best possible package put in place in the event of the quota holder renouncing the quota. Subsequently, Greencore renounced the quota. Built into the potential compensation package was the fact that it would be available for a further two years but production was still possible after that date.

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