Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising the issue because it is relevant. There are many interests that for some time have been discussing whether it is possible for Ireland to start processing sugar again from sugar beet. As somebody who has driven many tractors and trailers with sugar beet into what was previously the Mallow factory, when I worked on a farm in Mallow, and on our farm at home for a while I have a good appreciation of how important the sugar industry is for the tillage sector as a break crop, a cash crop, a crop that does not rely on any payments and a crop that produces cash at a time of year when farmers want it, which is in the autumn in the build up to Christmas.

I have been as supportive as I can be of both feasibility studies that have been put together in the past six months from two different groups, both with a view to exploring the possibility of growing sugar beet for sugar processing in Ireland and putting a business case together for the redevelopment of a sugar processing sector. Both of those feasibility studies were impressive, and I spent quite some time talking through them and so on with both teams.

It is important for me to emphasise that if we are to have a sugar industry re-emerge here we must ensure that it is an industry built on solid foundations in terms of the financing of it and the business plan for it. It is something I would really like to see happen but the business case is the most important issue. My job as Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine is to ensure that if a business case can be made for spending the guts of ¤200 million or ¤300 million on putting a new processing facility in place Ireland has a quota to be able to produce sugar, if there is still a quota regime, or that we can move away from the limitations of a sugar quota regime within the European Union as soon as possible.

In 2005, when there was a fundamental change in EU sugar policy, Ireland got out of the sugar processing business and significant compensation was paid to encourage us to do that. I not want to go into the history of that but I had a big problem with it at the time.