Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am interested in the issue of codes. The information the Lidl representatives have given us indicates clear divisions. I have mentioned the brands of two very large companies that are household names and, as I said, they can look after themselves. While it is an important issue for us, we do not need a sledge-hammer to crack the nut.

Any information on how this breaks down, particularly with regard to volume, would be useful. Lidl might have 150 suppliers but two of the really big ones might account for 30% or 40% of its purchases. These might be multinationals that are even bigger than the multinational multiples. So far as I am concerned, that is an equal fight to be fought among themselves.

The concern of this agriculture committee is to protect the producers who are producing from the land and seas of Ireland. If we do not have our indigenous suppliers we will have no economy and then the stores will have no consumers. We should never forget that this country depends hugely on the land and the seas of Ireland to survive as a country. The consumer, in many cases, is also directly or indirectly linked to the supplier and to the ability of this country to produce. If this is not possible, there is no economic future in this country.

I thank the Lidl representatives for their attendance. It has been interesting to listen to all the different multiple chains but from our point of view as a committee it is the absent member who is the spectre at the feast. One particular chain has refused to attend a meeting. To those who have attended and have put their point of view, I say fair play to them; they made their point. We might not have agreed with everything they said and we might have more questions, but at least they had the guts to come in and answer the questions.

It seems to be uniformly the case that Irish meat - Irish beef in particular - is very well marketed by supermarket chains. All the major multiples who attended said they sourced all their beef in Ireland. This is welcome. We need to talk to the national milk agency, but that is for another day.