Mr. John Bryan:

The basic economics are that European taxpayers pay the single farm payment. They are not the fairy godmother and they want value for money. They want jobs, food security and public goods. I have heard Angela Merkel say on a dozen occasions that she wants value for money. She is not going to pay us to look at the scenery.

There are two groups culpable for the market price between the UK and Ireland, namely, retailers and the processors. We can send cattle to England but we cannot get the same price for them. An Irish animal sent to England and slaughtered there makes about €250 less than one that was born and reared here. However, the same rule applies in Ireland. We have a substantial amount of UK-born animals being slaughtered here that make substantially less. People got carried away and paid too much for calves two years ago, and they imported a lot of UK calves. Those animals now make €150 to €200 less per animal here. The foreign animals in any market always kill at a discount. UK retailers today are running what I do not like to call a scam, so I will call one of the greatest things in the world. They will buy English beef first, any day of the week. I met representatives from Tesco lately and I was told that company policy was to get rid of all the Irish suppliers over a period of a few years and replace it all with British. Anything that comes from us as a secondary product comes in at a discount.

However, it is their stated policy to get our products off the shelves. We could ship the beef tomorrow but it would not be easy to get it onto the shelves. The product must either be Irish quality assured and this means that the animals must be born, reared and slaughtered here or UK quality assured. To get on the shelves in Tesco, Asda, the Co-op and Morrisons, beef must be 100% British and not an ounce of Irish product is being accepted.

I met representatives from Tesco to discuss this matter and I intend to meet their counterparts from Sainsbury's in the coming weeks. I have already discussed the matter to some degree with the representatives from Sainsbury's and asked them to identify the difference. Sainsbury's is quite prepared to take Irish product, particularly at a lower price. It puts premium British beef on its top shelf and other beef below that. There are two hurdles to be jumped. The first is to get UK retailers to pay the same price for Irish beef as they do for UK beef and the second is to obtain greater access. We have access through Larne but, unfortunately, P&O Ferries has informed us that it is bored with facilitating us and that its customers do not like travelling with live exports. We can get cattle to England but we just cannot obtain the same price for the animals as that obtained by our UK counterparts. That is the major difficulty.

I completely accept the point regarding the importance of the sector to the economy. That is the aspect which must be borne in mind. Deputy Deering and others referred to the fact that it is not as simple as people transferring into and out of dairying. Consider, for example, the position of the small, fragmented farms in Senator Comiskey's county of Leitrim. No bank in the world will loan someone there the money to convert their operation to dairying. They have sucklers and sheep. My farm is divided into 15 separate parcels of land, most of which are a couple of miles apart. This means that it is not exactly suitable for dairying. There will be a level of conversion but it is not just as simple as everyone transferring to dairying tomorrow. We should always study the example of New Zealand. This is the best example of the lot. New Zealand increased its dairy quota 400% and reduced its jobs to approximately 20%. The jobs that had previously been on beef and sheep farms were lost and it now takes 550 cows for a farmer in New Zealand to earn what one of his counterparts here would earn by milking 70 cows. I am not sure that the New Zealand model offers a solution. I am of the view that we should try to protect the jobs that already exist here.

In the context of Deputy Martin Ferris's point on animal weights, we had a meeting with the Minister of State, Deputy Tom Hayes, this morning and informed him about the need to send a signal. I would say the same to Deputy Martin Ferris as I said in reply to Deputy Ó Cuív, namely, that the beef barons rip the system off whenever they get the opportunity. When the weather changes or whatever, they manipulate the price on a collective basis. The more live exports there are - whether calves, weanlings or whatever - the greater the competition. That is why we have put a great deal of effort into opening up north Africa. However, it takes some time to fill a ship destined for north Africa. However, there is still good competition.