The Minister negotiated, against all the odds, what has been universally acknowledged as a most favourable outcome for Irish farmers in the Agenda 2000 CAP reform. He copperfastened the Agenda 2000 gains in the recent Brussels summit decision on the future financing of the CAP, securing direct payments to 2013. He successfully defended export refunds in the WTO negotiations at Doha, is providing €2.8 billion in public expenditure to support the agriculture sector in 2003, of which €1.6 billion will be paid directly to farmers, and he has continued to allocate substantial Exchequer resources to control animal diseases in the national herd.