Deputy Tom Barry told The Avondhu this week that the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine are at present putting together a document on their contribution regarding the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy.

“This is an important piece of work involving the teasing out of the various aspects of the agreement – such as convergence, greening, young farmers, flexibility between pillars etc. – and also sugar quotas,” he said.

“Once again, there is strong cross-party support for sugar and, during the discussions, I thanked the committee for their help to date, which played a significant part in the negotiations to remove sugar quotas by 2017. Now the committee is discussing the return of a sugar industry and how this can be aided.”