Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to be associated with the kind remarks to the Romanian ambassador and his staff. I have been to Romania on a number of occasions. It is truly a beautiful place, and they are beautiful people. I also acknowledge that many Romanians work in the Seanad, including Ilinca. We have many Romanians working in the catering, housekeeping, secretarial, administration and security services. Romanian people are very much immersed in our society, and particularly in our parliamentary community. That is fantastic and I acknowledge that.

Today I want to talk briefly about the Department of agriculture, which this week published its Annual Review and Outlook for Agriculture, Food and the Marine 2023. Clearly, this is a very important sector. It is of critical importance to our agriculture, food and marine industry. I would like to call for a debate on it, because agriculture does not get enough debate in this House. It has a set panel that is designated for agriculture. Clearly, when it was decided to establish the Seanad, agriculture was prioritised as one of the key bodies.

I will raise some of the highlights in the Minister’s report, which he published the other day. There is a record of €19 billion in agrifood exports for 2022. Some 164,000 are employed in the agrifood sector. There is €6.9 million in exports in the dairy industry, with both butter and cheese amounting to €1 billion. The exports of beef are €3.1 billion, which is an increase of €620,000. In the area of tillage, there is an additional 90,000 tonnes of cereal production in this country. This is a good news story. Beverages exports are at €2.1 billion with Irish whiskey now exceeding €1 billion. All of this was announced this week and that is impressive stuff. Our seafood exports are at €642 million, which is a 5% increase in value.

We have to do some work on forestry, and we all know and have identified that. National targets have been set by the Government and they are simply not delivering. Finally, 80% of our mushrooms are exported to Great Britain. What an impressive crop. We have a few challenges around that, because we can grow that business even further.

Finally, regarding the Brexit adjustment reserve, BAR, came into place to support many. The mushroom, beef and seafood sectors were supported by it, but that will end on 31 December this year. There may be an overhang, although I am told that we cannot continue to apply this funding. I therefore think we need to keep a focus on this in the debate. Let us look at the Brexit adjustment reserve, how it supported the industries I mentioned today, and how we benefited from that. That was critically important. Brexit had a huge impact on agriculture, which is one of our major exporting industries in this country. In order to keep the focus, my ask is to look at BAR and its impact on the agrifood sector.