Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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Question 20: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if she will lobby the EU to increase the annual milk quota in view of the worldwide growth in demand for dairy products. [7099/08]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy may be aware, I have been lobbying the EU for some time to agree to a milk quota increase in order to allow milk producers to respond to the positive signals on the dairy market.

I was in contact with a number of my counterparts in the weeks leading up to last September's Council of Agriculture Ministers to build support for just such an increase, as it had been clear for some time that farmers' ability to respond to the buoyancy in the dairy market was being curtailed by quota restrictions.

I followed these contacts with a formal call at the September Council meeting for a quota increase of 3 per cent from 1 April 2008. The Commission undertook to consider this in the context of its December Dairy Market Report. That report was published in December and recommended a quota increase of 2 per cent for all member states from April 2008. While I have welcomed this development, I have also continued to assert my belief that an increase of more than 2 per cent is justified at this time.

The 2 per cent proposal is now being advanced in Brussels and is expected to be voted on at the March Council of Ministers.