Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The introduction of a fair trade baseline to tackle unfair trading practices in Europe is crucial.

Fianna Fáil has taken its proposals to Europe and is continuing to push them. It is key that at European level we see progress in that regard.

In the Minister of State's previous reply, he also referred to Food Wise 2025 which my party certainly supports, albeit we feel it needs to be reviewed to meet the challenges of Brexit. Food Wise 2025 looks at increasing agrifood exports from €11 billion to €19 billion, but the following is also key. While overall production needs to increase and is beneficial for the country, we also need to see that benefitting the farmers and those who are driving that strategy and driving that projected increase in exports. That means fair prices. It also means that we see proper support from the Government for schemes, in particular, the rural development programme I have mentioned, to ensure that the spending is at committed levels. I ask the Minister of State about the funding of the rural development programme and the steps the Government is taking to ensuring the CAP is maintained, at a minimum at its current level, in upcoming negotiations and address what has been a very slow roll-out by the Department of some of the rural development programme funds.

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