Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael)

As Minister for agriculture, I have a close working relationship with the food industry and businesses. When people think agriculture, they think farmers. That is only right since there are 120,000 Irish farmers in the country who produce that top-quality food. We also have 170,000 people, or close to it, employed in this sector, however, and many of those high-quality jobs are in food processing and in those companies the Deputy mentioned. They all feed into the value of our exports, which last year alone were worth €19.2 billion to the overall economy, so it is all those jobs together. When I will lead trade missions to Asia next month, as I have to America on many occasions, I will be joined by companies. I will go to the Seoul Food expo in Korea, the fourth largest food exhibition in Asia, and follow that with the World Expo in Osaka, Japan. I will be accompanied by Bord Bia, which, as a semi-State agency, is our direct link with those companies. They tell us where their key opportunities are, we work on market access issues and we work on trade promotion with those companies. What benefits food companies and their exports also benefits farmers and feeds directly down to that balanced regional development and the importance of the rural economy.

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