Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Department and Bord Bia have adequate resources. We have significantly increased the resources available to Bord Bia in recent years to deal with the Brexit challenge and various opportunities. The market access unit of my Department is making significant progress in restructuring its endeavours in respect of processed beef and live exports. It must be borne in mind that Department has to engage with competent authorities in other jurisdictions from which it takes terms and conditions in terms of market access, be that in regard to the age of the product that can be exported or the epidemiological background of the herd from which that product comes. We try to secure the most favourable trading relationships but we are engaged with competent authorities of jurisdictions. It would be wrong of us to set a target for live exports because that would leave us open to the charge that we are chasing targets at the expense of standards. There will be no diminution of standards on live exports.

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