Results 3,261-3,280 of 34,599 for speaker:Seán Fleming

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I ask Mr. Gleeson to give me an answer. The scheme did not work because of the attached conditions whereby farmers would have to reduce their herd in future years in an attempt to alleviate climate change. Farmers did not sign up to the scheme because they would have to reduce their potential future income. Was that condition dreamt up in Dublin or in Brussels?

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I ask Mr. Gleeson to explain the reference to 5%.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: The committee will ask for a detailed note on the matter. Mr. Gleeson keeps referring to the lack of demand. Farmers did not apply for the very good reason we have just been discussing. There was a condition attached whereby they would have to reduce their future agricultural output to be accepted onto the scheme. That is like telling a person that he or she will be given a grant now...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: Mr. Gleeson understands what I am saying.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: To close off this contentious topic, I ask Mr. Gleeson to send the committee a full briefing note on the matter, including the take-up, the consultations with farmers' groups, the issues raised, etc.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I thank Mr. Gleeson. I do not want us to get bogged down dealing with this one issue.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I presume that protection of the Department's assets is on its risk register. If so, I would like the Department to examine it, what mechanisms it has in place and the reasonable remarks that have been made about the practicality of having half an acre here and half an acre there. One can see what happens over decades. It is about protecting State assets. The Department might revert to...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: We have mentioned already that we have pencilled in a meeting for Tuesday evening, 5 November when we are back again and starting our work on carbon tax, but I will call that formally. We will have two meetings on carbon tax. The Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI has confirmed it will attend.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: Around 7 p.m. It will be in the evening time. I have a few questions to put. I thank the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine for all the documentation and for the annual report. Everything in here is clear and all of that, but I am kind of surprised by it and I think others will be surprised by it as well. I am reading straight from the annual report, and if I am correct in my...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: No, it is the Department's annual report for 2018.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I am not sure of the figure. It refers to billions on one side of the chart and it refers to millions on the other side of the same chart.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: Yes. I think the billions on the left-hand side refer to money, specifically to euro.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I accept that, and €5.5 billion of that was to the UK, €4.3 billion was to the other EU countries, and the rest of the world was €3.6 billion.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: The page from the annual report I was talking about is on the screen now. There is a reference to billions on the left-hand side and I suspect that refers to billions of euro and that about €8 billion euro is referred to.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: The right-hand side refers to tonnes.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: That tells me Ireland exported approximately 7 million tonnes of agrifood products last year. I want "Yes" answers to these questions because I am reading the Department's annual report.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I want to get the whole of page 9 on the screen if it is possible. People know Ireland is well known for its agricultural trade and exports. Of those exports detailed in the chart, 4.3 billion tonnes went to the UK, 420,000 tonnes went to the Netherlands, and 190,000 tonnes went to the United States. They are our biggest markets. Page 10 of the Department's annual report details the 2018...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I know I am right. I look at the bottom of page 10 on the annual report and it tells me we imported 4.856 million tonnes of agrifood products from the UK.

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: From all the talk about the agricultural industry, people understand that we export a massive amount of food products to the UK, and according to the Department's annual report, we import much more food from the UK than we export to the UK. I will continue on this point. The Netherlands is the second biggest country for our exports with 420,000 tonnes in 2018, but we imported 710,000 tonnes...

Public Accounts Committee: 2018 Annual Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
Vote 30 - Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Chapter 10 - Forestry Grants (24 Oct 2019)

Seán Fleming: I am talking about the volume. I know about the pricing and I have been looking at the book. It will come as a surprise to most of the population that Ireland imports much more food than it exports. We always knew we were eating more pasta and rice and that we were eating fewer potatoes than we used to, but when I looked at these figures I did not realise the scale of what we are doing. I...