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

Could I reiterate what I said? The National Milk Agency's job is to ensure adequate compensation. Two points have been made to us by its representatives present. The first is that liquid milk farmers are not making money. The second is, if I take it on a three to five year basis - taking anything shorter than that is a nonsense because of the cycle - the purpose for which the agency has been set up is to assure milk 365 days a year. When I speak of milk, I refer to fresh milk because there is enough powdered milk in this country to keep us going forever. The agency's job is to ensure the provision of fresh milk 365 days a year. I did not blame the agency. The question I asked was whether the agency needs more power to ensure the compensation which guarantees the supply in the longer term, because one cannot do it on an annual basis. I will put a rider on it as well. Should the agency have extra power to deal with extraordinary situations such as we have at present?

What I said earlier is that we are legislators. I started dealing with the liquid milk farmers in the summer and tried to get an understanding of where the issues were and of what we could do. It is easy to emphasise the problems and a great deal harder to solve them. We need to know what powers can be provided legally without offending competition law to ensure compensation and supply.