The Minister developed and implemented, at considerable expense to the taxpayer, traceability systems for cattle, sheep and pigs to provide state of the art food safety guarantees for consumers of Irish products and provide a marketing edge in increasingly competitive markets. He put in place one of the most efficient systems in the EU for payment of direct income payments to farmers, with the vast bulk of cheques now issuing on the first day allowed under EU regulations. No other member state administration matches this level of service.