Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

As Deputy Sherlock is aware, I introduced a national component to the scheme this year, the first time this has been done. The Food Harvest report stated that we would review the existing milk quota trading scheme and I have already done so. Let us consider the line north from Dublin to Galway. The co-operatives in this area, including Connacht Gold, Lakeland Dairies and Town of Monaghan, expressed concern that there could be a loss of milk from the area. I am aware from speaking to some of the senior officials in those processing units that they are perfectly satisfied with the level of demand for milk quota this time around. Although the processing has only just begun in the Department, the provisional figures for the first exchange show a total of 542 applications from sellers and 2,707 applications from buyers were received by 5 November. This shows a demand for milk exists and it is a vote of confidence in our ambitions and the realisable targets we have set to double milk production by 2020. That was the first opportunity I had to make a change to the existing quota arrangements and, from the initial analysis, it appears to have proven successful.

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