Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I ask the ICBF to suspend its decision of 28 November until the stakeholder forum has taken place. The Salers Society is one of the major stakeholders and it did not see this coming. This is not a farmer over the road who has penned a letter here. It is one of the stakeholders with which the ICBF is supposed to have negotiated and spoken over many months. The Salers Society is questioning the validity of the index and is saying that what has manifested bears no resemblance to what the consultation and talks in the proceeding months would have produced. The obvious thing to do here, and we have often had to do it politically, is to walk away with one's tail between one's legs, reassess and come at it from a different angle. Surely the obvious thing to do here is to abandon this, at least until the stakeholder forum has taken place. We should not be talking about compensatory schemes or any of that kind of stuff. The whole thing should be suspended, at a minimum, until the spring period. Surely the board has discussed that. We have all had to do that politically. When something goes pear-shaped, we go into our inner sanctum, meet in camera, and say there has to be a break-out from this. Has that not already been discussed given the huge reaction the ICBF has had from farmers?