EU agriculture post on offer

IRELAND’S new EU commissioner is being pressed to take the agriculture portfolio with over 40% of the budget.

Máire Geoghegan-Quinn had a second meeting with Commission President José Manuel Barroso yesterday in Brussels to discuss her future job.

If she agrees to take the job, she will be Ireland’s second Agriculture Commissioner following Ray MacSharry, who held the job two decades ago and completed substantial reforms of the Common Agriculture Policy.