Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I can understand my colleague's frustration, as somebody who comes from a town where the sugar industry provided huge employment and significant opportunities for arable farmers in particular, that the industry is now no longer in existence because of policy decisions and mistakes that were made a number of years ago. That being said, I think it is possible for us to revive the sugar industry, but only if a number of things happen.

First of all, I have made it clear that the Government is not going to subsidise the setting up of a new sugar industry because we need to ensure that any new industry that begins in Ireland again can stand on its own two feet. However, I believe there is a fighting chance that the sugar industry will be set up again in Ireland on a commercial basis. Last summer we had two very professionally put together viability studies for the setting up of a sugar industry in Ireland again, from a processing point of view, which would involve building a large sugar processing plant and ethanol production facility. There are a number of people who are extremely committed to making this happen and they are very credible people. Michael Hoey, in particular, who heads up Beet Ireland, has put a huge amount of his own resources and time into putting together a very realistic business plan for rebuilding a sugar processing sector in Ireland. It is his job to put the business case together and he will do that, in terms of attracting investors and so forth. It is my job to ensure that if that business case is to proceed that there is either a sugar quota for Ireland in the future or there is no sugar quota in the European Union.

The current sugar regime in the EU will end in 2015 and Ireland has already been compensated to get out of that regime to the tune of €353 million. That means that we are not going to be able to produce sugar before 2015. The Commission is proposing that the sugar quota regime would end in 2015, which is something that Ireland supports. However, I do not think it is realistic because the countries that currently have sugar quota will insist on the quota regime extending beyond 2015, in my view, possibly until 2018 or 2020. In that context, we will be seeking an opportunity for Ireland to be allocated quota for domestic use, given the fact that we have been compensated to be out of the sugar industry until 2015 but not beyond that. Given the size of our food industry here and the volume of sugar use in that industry, we should be allowed a sugar quota to be able to support it. We have made a very strong case for this, both publicly and privately, to the Commission.

See this speech in context