Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I agree with Deputy Moynihan on two matters, the first of which is the huge of importance of agriculture to the Irish economy. There has been a strong performance in recent times by the agriculture and, in particular, the food sector, which has enormous potential for job creation. Much of Ireland's strong export performance in recent times is due to the performance of our agriculture and food sector. We take considerable satisfaction in the fact that as a country we are now producing enough food to feed ten times our population, with the obvious implications of this for our export performance.

I agree also with the Deputy that the recent spell of very bad weather is creating huge problems for farmers in terms of the flooding of land and difficulties in harvesting and managing their farms. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine is particularly concerned about this and has for that reason decided to bring the single farm payment forward by six weeks to October.

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