Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)
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Question 93: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food the number of meetings of the Food Agency Co-Operation Council in 2004; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [17320/05]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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The Food Agency Co-operation Council was established in 2000 under the aegis of my Department to promote the fullest practical co-operation between the State agencies involved in the food industry, in the interests of the optimum development of the industry. The council has an independent chairman, Mr. Padraic White. The inaugural meeting of the council took place in March 2000 and it has met on 20 occasions since its inception. The council did not meet in 2004 as a number of factors contributed to the difficulties in re-scheduling meetings that year.

The council has played a significant role in increasing co-operation, at formal and informal level, between the State agencies involved in the food industry and has led to a number of memorandums of understanding being agreed between agencies. The council has also produced a number of publications, which have been well received by the industry. In 2001, the council was instrumental in drawing up an agreed human resource development programme for the food processing industry and also produced the publication "Market Trends — Implications for Suppliers and State Agency Initiatives".

In December 2002, the council's publication "A National Food Incident Management Plan" was launched. The "Market Led New Product Development Guide", launched in April 2003, provides guidance to food and drink companies on new product development best practice and this has since been promulgated to county enterprise boards.

During 2004 the food development agencies directly concerned with the food programme components of the National Development Plan 2000-2006 met twice with my Department to assess progress on the plan in preparation for meetings of the monitoring committee for the programmes concerned. My Department is currently considering the future work of the council, having regard inter alia to the recommendations of the enterprise strategy report, the 2015 agri-vision report and work on the national strategic implementation plan to achieve the goals set out in the Government's research and development action plan, Building Ireland's Knowledge Economy.