Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will echo what the Senator said earlier. Bad heifers, regardless of what index they are given, will never be good cows. I know a good pedigree producer living in County Longford. He breeds Charolais and Limousin cattle and he routinely sells calves and young bulls for between €10,000 and €20,000. He is breeding one of the best-selling ones off a cow with an index rating of 1 and a bull with an index rating of 4. Based on that, the progeny should be coming out with an index rating of about 2, yet he sold one in recent weeks for €15,000. I accept that there will always be examples like that but with his science hat on, I ask Dr. Crosson if the ICBF has made provision for that bank of knowledge that is there.

The huge strides we have made were acknowledged in the opening statement in terms of sucklers and the profitability and prices we are achieving now. This is not inherently down to just indexing but to good farm practice and knowledge. Is there no accounting in the indexes for these aspects?