Food industry promotion and funding
Byrne challenged the lack of funds for overseas promotion, and O’Keeffe questioned whether the food industry had failed. Hegarty said funding was not a barrier to development, attributed the Barcelona decision to CTT and cited a competitive IDA package.
Would the Minister agree that, with the best efforts in the world, the food processing industry will be a waste if, as the Minister admitted a few moments ago, we have no money to promote those products in CBF or CTT? Are we not walking backwards to Christmas?
Comment on this
The Minister admitted it a few moments ago. We were not represented in Barcelona and the Minister said we had no money to send anyone to promote our meat industry.
Comment on this
I said it was a CTT decision. Funds are not a problem in regard to the development of the industry. As late as a week ago an overseas company admitted that the package available from the IDA at the moment is as good as, if not better than, any package anywhere else in the EC.
