Mary White (Fianna Fail)

In the past couple of days during the debate on the Competition (Amendment) Bill 2005 I drew attention to the fact that in the past ten years there has been practically no growth in the food and drink industry in Ireland. I share Senator Callanan's concerns for the erosion of rural life and am worried about the resulting retraction in the numbers of people farming. I call for an urgent debate on indigenous Irish industry, particularly the food and drink industry, to examine its relationship with farming and the potential for business in the farming sector. We must remember that every large business started as a small one and we need another success likeBaileys. The success stories such as Google that we hear of every day are tremendous but we must develop our indigenous industry.