Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 103: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the steps he will take to undo the Mandelson proposals in view of the assessments carried out by Teagasc on the implications for agriculture here if EU concessions to the World Trade Organisation were adopted and the possibility of WTO negotiations recommencing shortly; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44071/08]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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As the Deputy will be aware, no WTO agreement was reached at the July Ministerial meeting, despite exhaustive discussions over nine days. As of today, the Director General, Mr Lamy has not announced a new Ministerial meeting although there is speculation that one will take place before the end of the year.

However, even if a ministerial meeting is called, it is not certain that there will be a successful outcome, given the economic and political situation worldwide. Despite ongoing discussions there is no agreement at present on the key issue of the Special Safeguard Mechanism which caused disagreement in July and ultimately led to the failure of the Ministerial meeting. Many other issues also remained outstanding at that time. Procedures in the WTO require the agreement of each of the 153 members to all aspects of the Single Undertaking which includes Agriculture, Non Agriculture Market Access, Services, Rules and Development Issues.

It is no secret that I am not happy with some of the proposals currently on the table. My concerns are borne out by the report produced in September last by FAPRI-Ireland/Teagasc. This report assesses the likely impact of a WTO deal by comparing what would happen if there was a deal with what would happen without it in the period up to 2017. They found that in relation to the dairy and cereals sector, WTO reform would be unlikely to have a major impact as EU prices for most dairy and cereal commodities are now quite close to international price levels. However, the report found that the beef and sheep-meat sectors would experience substantial losses from tariff reductions. In the case of beef, it found that even in the absence of a WTO agreement, EU beef imports are likely to grow strongly over the next 10 years. It also found an important difference in the likely impact of a WTO deal if beef is declared a sensitive product by the EU.

In that respect, the views of the Irish Government in regard to the WTO negotiations remain unchanged. We want an agreement but that agreement must be balanced, that is to say, balanced in terms of the various strands of the negotiations and balanced within what Ireland and the EU are prepared to concede and the concessions offered by trading partners. Ireland remains determined that agriculture should not be sacrificed for the sake of an overall agreement. The EU negotiating mandate is that the terms of any new WTO agreement should not necessitate a further reform of the CAP. We carried out our reforms in 2003, in preparation for the WTO negotiations. I and my colleagues in Government will continue to make all efforts to secure a deal that delivers real benefits to Ireland, the EU and developing countries and does not sacrifice the agriculture sector. We will assess the balance and ambition if and when a full package, including services, rules and trade facilitation is ultimately agreed.