Mr. Brian Rushe:

I will comment on the cost of imported versus domestic products. One of the things that challenges European, including Irish, growers is that our regulatory environment, such as EU regulations and some of our quality assurance standards, adds significant costs. A lot of imported products do not carry those costs or the same regulatory burden we have. That covers all the agricultural sectors. It is an advantage. On top of the lower level of regulation, there is an abundance of labour and the producers are probably operating at a much larger scale than Irish growers, which gives them an additional advantage. I was stopped at a meeting last night by a farmer who said he was buying onions in a supermarket and noticed that there were not any onions from Ireland on the shelf. They were from Australia and Argentina which is unbelievable. It is important to make the point about the regulatory burden.