Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

As the Deputy recognised, Food Harvest 2020 sets out an ambitious roadmap and targets for the Irish food and drinks industry over the next decade. This is being driven by the high level implementation group, which I chair, and by a number of activation groups.

With regard to expanding Ireland's share in existing markets, Bord Bia is implementing or planning to implement a number of key initiatives. These include an expansion of the successful marketing fellowship programme with 30 executives undertaking more than 100 commercial assignments for 80 food and drink exporting companies in 13 overseas markets. I have met a number of people working on that fellow programme and it is very impressive. A reinvigorated Irish beef promotion in continental Europe with specific focus on the German market is under way and gaining success. We lost our market in Germany a number of years ago, as a result of the incidence of BSE, to South American suppliers of beef, but we are winning back that market. The growth of our market in Germany is impressive and it has the capacity to grow significantly. We are maximising the achievement of Carbon Trust accreditation linked to the Board Bia beef quality assurance scheme and are arranging the participation of Irish exporting companies in more than 20 international trade fairs.

I have spent some time since becoming Minister with Bord Bia in Spain and France and it is doing a good job at selling the quality of Irish food production. I am confident we will have strategies in place not only to expand European markets in terms of food exports but markets outside of the European Union. The Deputies opposite will find that I will be very proactive in this area. If we are to create the kind of good news story around the agrifood sector that Food Harvest 2020 can provide, we need to be proactive and aggressive at marketing Ireland as the best country in the world to produce high quality food that is environmentally friendly in terms of its carbon footprint, animal husbandry standards and the quality of food itself. We can do all of that very successfully with the agencies we have available to us.

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