As Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food, and the Marine, he also produced the first parliamentary report on the Offshore Oil and Gas sector in 2012, which called for a new fiscal licensing regime in Offshore Oil and Gas exploration off the coast of Ireland. As part of the Irish Presidency of the Council of the European Union in 2013, he hosted a conference in Dublin Castle with EU member states Parliamentary Agriculture Committee Chairs from all 27 countries, engaging parliamentarians with speakers such as the European Commissioner for Agriculture, and then Romanian Prime Minister, Dacian Ciolos and the European Commissioner for Fisheries, Maria Damanaki.
