Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Question 395: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food the action he is taking to ensure research is being carried out on the potential impact of WTO trade talks on the food producing sector here in advance of the restart of the negotiations at the end of 2009; and when this research will be published. [20976/09]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Currently talks on a new WTO Agreement are stalled following the failure to reach agreement at the Ministerial meeting in July of last year and the decision to defer indefinitely a second Ministerial meeting planned for last December. In consequence, at present there are no new proposals to analyse. However, I am in a position to call upon the wealth of research that has been conducted prior to the breakdown of negotiations to assess the potential impact of the talks on the Irish food-producing sector.

Prior to last December, my Department had conducted a significant amount of detailed analysis and research of the issues within the WTO talks since the outset of the negotiations. Assessments were carried out on an ongoing and continuous basis of the various negotiating proposals which emerged in the negotiations. This analysis covered a large number of different scenarios and their impacts on the different agricultural sectors. In particular, the analysis evaluated the levels of import protection for individual products under the various different tariff cut scenarios that had been proposed in the course of the negotiations. It provided a basis for assessing the impact of such cuts and the relative benefits of seeking sensitive product status to mitigate their effects.

Similar estimations were made by various representative bodies and shared with the Department. These assessments were used to evaluate the various negotiating proposals which emerged from the discussions and to develop the Irish negotiating position in these negotiations.

A number of other bodies and research institutes, in Ireland and elsewhere, also carried out economic studies and research. Some of these analyses attempted a broader, overall assessment of possible outcomes of the negotiations. Inevitably these studies were based on a wide range of assumptions about issues that are .yet to be decided in the negotiations. My Department also considered these studies and continues to use them inform our negotiating strategy.

In particular I would point to the FAPRI Ireland WTO Analysis of Impacts on Irish and EU Agriculture study of March 2006 and the 2003 Forfás WTO Negotiating Objectives for Irish Enterprise Report. The FAPRI analysis was updated in 2008 in the light of new proposals emerging from the negotiations.

The FAPRI results represent the most thorough, professional and independent assessment of the impacts available. Their results also are broadly in line with the findings of static product level estimates of import protection undertaken by my Department, which show a significant challenge to the beef sector from imports even without the WTO tariff reductions.