Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I cannot answer that question today. The carbon budget and climate action plan are not agreed yet but they will be agreed in the next couple of weeks and hopefully that will give certainty not just to people in agriculture but to people across the economy and across our society. We as a Government want young people going into farming. We want them to know that this is a career, a livelihood and a lifestyle that they can have. We want Ireland to continue to be a food producer. I am proud of the fact that this is a country that produces enough food to feed 45 or 50 million people, which is nine times our population. I do not think we would achieve anything in terms of food security or climate by producing less food. That food is going to be needed. There will be an increased demand for food across the world and we produce it more sustainably than others. We are going to have to produce it more sustainably again but it would be a retrograde step if we produced less food and then had other countries produce it for us in a way that would be much less sustainable.

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