Results 35,521-35,540 of 40,897 for speaker:Simon Coveney

Sugar Industry (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: I concur with the Deputy. If we can access funding to cover the capital costs of building an infrastructure that can facilitate a sugar industry, we should consider the proposal. My responsibility is to ensure that post-2015 Ireland will have the capacity, from a quota point of view, to produce sugar again if it is commercially viable to do so. This will be challenging. While the...

Food Industry (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: Deputy Collins raises the issue of the need to create an umbrella brand for Irish food. We are lucky to have a body in Ireland responsible for branding Irish food, trying to build our international reputation as a sustainable, safe, green, tasty source of food. We are trying to create that image, whether it is in dairy, beef, lamb, seafood or whatever. I think Bord Bia is doing a...

Food Industry (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: I can understand why the Deputy would like to recognise the work of my predecessor, and I would like to do that too. Food Harvest 2020 was put in place during the lifetime of the previous Government. It was one of the really good things that was done during that period. I would like to think that we are implementing that document in a really ambitious way. In fact, we have upgraded some...

Food Industry (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: I speak to Bord Bia about this issue all the time. The work on brand Ireland has already begun and is under way. When I am abroad I speak all the time about the beef quality assurance scheme and about the fact that Ireland is the first country in the world essentially to carbon footprint the food we produce. We are about to roll that out on the dairy side as well. It is important to make...

Food Industry (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: What we are about is winning that reputation by providing data, back-up and science to support our claims. That is tedious work in terms of going on to farms, crunching the numbers with farmers and being able to back up everything we say. That is the type of work that is ongoing at present. Added to that, we are trying to build a PR brand around the attractive imagery that should be coming...

Food Industry (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: The Deputy is entitled to that view.

Food Industry (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: There are perception issues with GM foods but we are also trying to develop a reputation for developing research capacity in food in Ireland. This is where the initiative comes from in Teagasc's view. If we can be at the forefront in developing crop varieties by using GM, we should not discount it because consumers have a perception of GM. It is about balancing the two.

Common Agricultural Policy (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: An initial consultation process was launched with stakeholders by my Department in July 2009 to obtain views on what EU agriculture policies would serve Ireland and the EU best in the years to come. The responses received are helping to inform our position in the negotiations on the future of the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, after 2013. In 2010, a consultative committee on the CAP after...

Common Agricultural Policy (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: I know what the Deputy is getting at and I have no difficulty with introducing a cap on payments. There is a proposal to do that. The current proposal from the European Commission is to propose a cap for single payments of €300,000. Of the 123,000 Irish farmers in receipt of the single farm payment, less than 0.2% received more than €100,000. That means only four or five companies or...

Common Agricultural Policy (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: We had a long discussion and debate in the European Council yesterday on greening, an area where there is a flagship change in policy on the part of the Commission by insisting on 30% of the single farm payment being for greening. Farmers would only get it if they met certain criteria in how they farm. We have some difficulties with that and we are trying to negotiate solutions to it. The...

Common Agricultural Policy (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: This question is about what I have just been discussing. The Deputy refers to the need to limit any reduction in the single farm payment for current recipients to 10% to 15%. I believe that figure comes from the Irish Farmers Journal of a couple of weeks ago following a farm talk I gave in Bandon in which I said I was hoping to try to limit the reductions in single farm payment support -...

Common Agricultural Policy (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: I am not quite clear on what the Deputy is asking. He is correct that there will be price volatility in the future. The price trends for food will continue to increase for dairy and meat products, but there will be dips at times which will cause problems. While farmers are doing well in the marketplace, we should be mindful that the average farm income is still relatively modest by any...

Common Agricultural Policy (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: The Deputy's final point is very relevant. It is also important to recognise that when prices were not so good, many farm families had alternative sources of income. A couple of years ago approximately 47% of farm families did not have an alternative income coming into the home; now the figure is approximately 56%. That is the obvious consequence of unemployment. Therefore, the income...

Disadvantaged Areas Scheme (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: This question concerns stocking rates in disadvantaged areas. I am fully satisfied that the proposed changes to the 2012 disadvantaged areas scheme, currently under discussion with the EU Commission, will have a positive environmental impact on the rural landscape in Ireland. The changes are specifically designed to provide tangible environmental benefits. It is clear from the evidence...

Disadvantaged Areas Scheme (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: That is because I do not yet have an exact answer to that question. This is not just about an appeals mechanism. Any farmer who was required to have a lower stocking rate in 2011, because of a commonage framework programme or because they are in an SAC or NHA, than the threshold stocking rate we introduced, will automatically get a derogation. No appeal is required for that. In other...

Disadvantaged Areas Scheme (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: That is a whole new question so I hope you will give me the latitude to answer it, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, because it will take a while.

Disadvantaged Areas Scheme (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: I will try to be brief. I have said consistently since budget day that we will not be opening an AEOS 3 in the same way as the previous two schemes worked. We do not have the money to do it, and that is the reality. I will try to put together an AEOS scheme which is purely based on giving financial support to farmers who are farming in restrictive conditions because they are in SACs,...

Milk Quota (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: This is not the first time Deputies Moynihan and Kirk have raised this issue, understandably so, because it is an important one. In the past year my Department and I have been extremely active in raising at every appropriate opportunity the question of an adjustment to the milk quota regime. We have made determined efforts to secure a soft landing for all member states in the lead-up to milk...

Milk Quota (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: The initiative is under way in that regard. I have mentioned the butterfat issue at practically every Council meeting I have been at. We have been taking Ministers aside on an informal basis and also setting up the formal bilateral meetings that I outlined in the answer to the question. The problem is there is no mechanism to force the EU to accept a butterfat correction. The reason we...

Milk Quota (21 Mar 2012)

Simon Coveney: It has been brought up directly with the Danish Presidency but it has also been brought up repeatedly directly with the Commissioner by me. The Commission position is straightforward. The Commission states that the Council voted in 2008 on a milk health check which guides policy, and if the Council wants to change that, the Council can do so but that must come from Council, not from the...