Feargal Quinn (Independent)

This new format of debate is excellent and one we should encourage. However, it might not work so well if we did not have a Minister like the Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, who seems to be well on top of his brief and is willing to respond to our questions. I am impressed by much of what he has said today.

The Minister is in an impossible situation in respect of one issue, an old hobby horse of mine which I have raised on many occasions. The Minister spoke about consumers driving agricultural production. However, I will present a hypothetical situation in order to illustrate the difficulties that may arise. Suppose I come to the Minister as an entrepreneur who wishes to open a food-processing factory. I see myself importing chicken from Thailand, because that is what suits me best, and the other ingredients from South America and Africa. As a person in the food-processing business, I want to get into the added-value food area, and importing these foodstuffs is what best suits my business objectives. I suspect that such a person would not receive a great deal of encouragement or enthusiasm for his proposition from any Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.

However, the reality is that there is great potential in added-value food production. It does not have to be Irish food, which is a different business altogether. For this reason, there must be a decoupling of food and agriculture within the Department. To illustrate my point, I remind Members that when McDonald's opened its first restaurant in Ireland some 20 or 25 years ago there was an outcry that the company was using Dutch potatoes. The Minister at the time, and many others, howled in outrage that a company looking for business in Ireland should be offering chips which came from Dutch potatoes. The company responded, just as the Minister has said, that it was a question of pleasing its customers, for which purpose these particular potatoes were more suitable than Irish potatoes. For the first few years of its operation in the State, McDonald's only used imported potatoes from Holland. Gradually, however, to address this problem, Irish farmers changed their processes in order to produce the potatoes McDonald's wanted and the company subsequently switched to using Irish potatoes for their chips.

There is a separate business to be explored, offering huge job opportunities, in the added-value processed food business, which need not necessarily be based on Irish-produced products. However, the Department has an impossible task in this regard. As I said, I doubt that any Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food would have a positive response for anybody who approached it with a view, for example, to opening a factory to produce chicken products, soups and pizza toppings to sell around the world using imported foodstuffs. There would be little enthusiasm for the proposal because the foods being used are imported.

I am not arguing that the encouragement of value-added food processing projects based on imported foodstuffs should be our sole objective but there is an opportunity to develop and support food businesses which are independent of Irish-produced food. How will the Minister find a way to overcome that problem? Perhaps he can reassure me that there is no clash of interests in this regard and that the types of ventures to which I referred would be welcomed by the Department. The Minister used all the right words and phrases, like "consumers" and "consumer driven", but I am concerned that he will be unable simultaneously to support Irish-produced food and value-added food processing ventures. How will he solve that problem?