Food Industry
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-09
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Martin Heydon (FG), Kildare South

A fair indication of what we will do in the future is what we have done recently. We went on trade missions such as to Seoul Food in Korea, Japan Expo, China, Germany, London and United Arab Emirates, where we went to Gulfood. Every Minister takes the opportunity of the St. Patrick's Day missions to promote the work, with Bord Bia and Enterprise Ireland, of our food and drinks companies. It can be Irish whiskey, dairy produce, beef or other things because we are exporting to more than 180 countries around the world. It is a collaboration.
Getting market access is slow. However, when companies come to us about a niche market, such as duck - they can tell us where there is a huge opportunity and they need to get market access - we reflect on it and if the economic return is there, we will put huge effort into engaging with the relevant authorities to get it. That process is slow but when we get it, we have the opportunity to build relationships, like we did when we gained access to Korea for beef.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-09