Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (Senator Pippa Hackett):

I concur with all that the Deputy has said. The value of small food producers has perhaps been ignored. That is why we fought to include the commitment to recognise that and do what we can to support local food producers in the programme for Government. Indeed, having local access to food processing is one part of that. Over the last number of decades, we have seen the demise of parts of rural Ireland in towns and villages that have lost their butchers, greengrocers and creameries that were there in years gone by. Reverse engineering out of that is going to be difficult, but we need to do what we can to support those smaller local producers. I have visited a number of small producers. Some of them might have a micro dairy on their own farm. They are able to pasteurise, bottle and perhaps sell from the farm gate. That has proven to be quite lucrative for those involved. There are also excellent examples of people direct selling their own meat. We need to support local producers and we are committed to supporting them.

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