Written answers

Wednesday, 25 May 2011

Department of Agriculture, Marine and Food

Job Creation

8:00 pm

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Question 80: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food his plans to develop local fisheries and local agriculture projects such as catchment management projects, community gardens and allotments that can provide employment and encourage the consumption of local produce; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12605/11]

Photo of Simon CoveneySimon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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In relation to the development of local fisheries, the Irish seafood sector employs approximately 11,000 people, mostly in peripheral coastal communities. Irish seafood enterprises are indigenous businesses with significant scope for expansion and have an important role to play on the road to national economic recovery. Food harvest 2020 estimates employment in the industry has the potential to expand to 14,000 by 2020, mostly through increases in employment in the seafood processing and aquaculture sectors.

For 2011, I have made €1.5 million available to foster the expansion and modernisation of the seafood processing sector through BIM's Seafood Processing Business Investment Scheme. A call for proposals has just been completed and despite the present economic climate, the call was fully subscribed by ambitious and enterprising Irish companies. I take great encouragement from that.

BIM is working with fishermen and processors around the coast to promote product innovation, differentiation of product, competitiveness, business acumen and management, environmental awareness and compliance. I recently launched a new BIM support scheme to encourage the Irish seafood sector away from low value commodity exports to value added high quality food products that provide much more employment and greater economic return on investment. The Seafood Value Adding Scheme will support Irish seafood companies in the area of new product development.

My Department, in conjunction with Teagasc, has to date assisted in the formation of 18 farm forest producer groups. These Groups enable farm forest owners to co-operate collectively in the management of their forests and the marketing of the timber produced in order to achieve economies of scale and thereby improve the viability of small forest holdings by contributing to the development of wood energy supply chains to local wood energy facilities at various locations around the country.

Issues surrounding community gardens and allotments are the responsibility of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government which makes arrangements for the local authorities to run allotments etc. My Department is responsible for commercial horticulture and commercial farming activities not for hobby or gardening pastimes.

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