Michael Comiskey (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the announcement by the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine that €20 million will be spent on the agri-food research and forestry industries. This is very important. Up to 300,000 people are employed at the moment in the agri-food industry and this will create more jobs, especially for young people who are coming out of third-level education to go into research. Research into the forestry industry is also important. We have a serious problem with ash die-back, which started in my own county of Leitrim. There is now an opportunity to research this fully and to see whether there is any way of stopping this terrible problem. There are facilities in Leitrim for more research to be carried out on this problem. This comes on top of the €200 million in the area of farm safety that was announced a few months ago. It is very positive news for the agriculture sector.