Develop ‘Brand Ireland’ and reduce bureaucracy in agriculture, says O’Donovan

Added September 21st, 2011

SPEAKING in the Dáil last week, Deputy Patrick O’Donovan said that the importance of farming to the local economy of County Limerick “cannot be underestimated.”

During a debate on CAP reforms being proposed by the EU, O’Donovan said that Limerick farmers are extremely active in the areas of milk and beef production as well as suckler herds and poultry and that the wider economy of the County has a “massive dependence on agriculture.”

With agriculture playing such a central role to the economy of Limerick, Deputy O’Donovan said that decisions made at Government level in the area of agriculture have a large impact on those living in his constituency. At both a local and national level, the promotion of “Brand Ireland” was essential to the development of the food production sector, he continued.

“Brand Ireland is very strong and those in my constituency would like to see the development of this brand for the poultry industry, so that we do not have imports coming into the country, having value added and being labelled Irish. This is a discrepancy which needs to be addressed,” O’Donovan told the Dáil.

He also welcomed the fact that the EU Commission is to allow some discretion in the internal management by each member of state of their schemes but said that more needed to be done to stop farmers being “strangled by bureaucracy.”

“We must address the need to allow farmers to farm by decoupling – to rob a word – administration from production to a certain degree and allowing people to do what they are good at, which is to produce a high-end quality product.”