Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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181. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he has had discussions with his ministerial colleagues at EU level on the New Zealand lamb quota with the EU in the context of Brexit; if the tariff rate quote will be amended in view of the fact that the UK takes up a large share of this EU wide rate; and his plans to ensure that sheep farmers will not be disadvantaged. [40110/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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As part of my preparations for the Brexit negotiations I have embarked on an extensive round of bilateral engagements with many of my EU counterparts. The purpose of these meetings is to apprise them of Ireland’s concerns about the impacts of Brexit, build alliances and assess the degree to which they would support our efforts to have the agri-food and fisheries impacts specifically and adequately taken account of in the negotiations.

In addition to meeting the Agriculture Ministers of Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Estonia, Poland, Denmark, Germany, The Netherlands, Malta and Spain, I have also had detailed discussions with Commissioner Hogan, Michel Barnier and the UK Secretaries of State for Agriculture.

In relation to the splitting of WTO tariff rate quotas between the EU and UK, this is matter that is the subject of ongoing technical discussions between the Commission and UK in parallel to the withdrawal negotiations, and Member States are being kept abreast of developments. The intention is to agree an appropriate and fair methodology for the splitting of such quotas, which would then form the basis of a joint approach to the WTO on the matter.