Michael Ahern (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

Many of us here were brought up on farms and dealt with beet since the day we were born. We understand the importance of it to the local economy. We fought every way we could to ensure that Mallow would be kept open.

I am afraid, and I agree with the prognosis, that Greencore decided that it wanted to get out. When the subsidies went and Carlow was gone, Mallow was too far away from farmers and it was not profitable to do it.

There is a need for an explanation of what the Court of Auditors has done, and the Minister is doing that. It needs to be explained clearly that a mistake was not made there that resulted in what they did.

On 14 March 2010, a Deputy colleague of mine, not Deputy Stanton or Deputy Sherlock, on Cork local radio claimed that I signed off on the sugar industry in Cancun in 2003, along with the former Minister, Mr. Joe Walsh, and Mr. John Dillon.

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