Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Question 227: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the extent to which he is satisfied that the dairy sector here is sufficiently competitive on home and overseas markets; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37791/08]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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One of the key challenges facing us in the medium term will be to ensure that Irish farming and the agri-food sector is at the heart of an evolving high-value food market, which is focussed on quality, competitiveness and innovation. This is at the core of Government strategy, as evidenced by the National Development Plan 2007-2013, AgriVision 2015 and the Partnership Agreement Towards 2016.

An important element of this strategy was the Dairy Investment Fund launched in 2007. My Department provided funding of €114 million towards investment in dairy processing and a total of 19 capital investment projects were approved and awarded Government grant assistance under the Fund, which will generate an estimated capital spend of €286 million at full production. The purpose of the Fund is to increase the efficiency of the main dairy outputs by supporting the upgrading of plant and buildings. This will assist operators in capturing new business in global markets and in developing new valued added products.

At EU level, one of the CAP Health Check proposals is to increase milk quotas in order to provide a 'soft landing' towards the abolition of quotas in 2015. This will provide Irish and EU dairy farmers with a new opportunity to respond to global demand. I have consistently pressed for increased quotas to allow Irish dairy farmers to avail of those opportunities to increase production and competitiveness and capture new market share.