Mr. Andrew Cromie:

It is timely that Mr. Coughlan has put up the slide with the graph. I draw members attention to the purple line. The animal events and cattle breeding database was established in 2002, as mentioned in Mr. Coughlan's presentation. At that time we had a major increase in the number of herds involved in cattle breeding, increasing from a few thousand herds to 15,000 dairy herds. The sire recorded animals in the cattle breeding database is 13 million to 14 million. We have a database of animals with ancestry, which is key for genetic gain, and we have the phenotypic records which cover milk, beef, female fertility and all the traits of economic importance. That has allowed us, together with Teagasc and its research team, in particular Dr. Pat Dillon's group, to generate genomic evaluations. Genomic evaluations are generated through taking the DNA of known animal sires, looking at their progeny evaluations and correlating them with the identification of genes of most value to develop predictions in order that one can subsequently genotype any animal and get a genomic evaluation.

As Mr. Coughlan alluded, we were the second country in the world to produce genomic evaluations in 2009. The data in the database have allowed us reach that point. As a consequence, 68,000 Irish farmers have an opportunity to access genomic evaluations. Every farmer has that opportunity, not just large or small ones. Senator O'Keeffe queried whether, over time, it will be larger farmers only who will have access to genomic evaluations. I suggest the answer is "no".