Mr. Henry Burns:

That is correct. Let us look back to where we were this time last year. We had the horsemeat crisis which was not caused by the farmers, who did their job right. A whole raft of new specifications have been introduced because of the bad behaviour of various people and the farmers are being forced to pay for that. The Minister and others had to do a lot of work last year in order to keep those guys in business and this is the payback for the farmers.

On the weight issue, the bottom line is very simple. The meat factories got us into the numbers game, created the confidence in keeping those numbers and now they are starting to do whatever they want to do. We have met them and tried to alter their approach to this but were not successful. The Minister brought them into a meeting with us, at our request, but two days later some of them tried to lower the weight limit. We are saying clearly here that we need help with this. As farm organisations, we are not able to sort this out on our own. We are putting our hands up and admitting that we need help. There are 100,000 livestock farmers in this country. The industry is worth €2 billion in exports but it is under threat at the moment. It is in danger of going more and more into the hands of the factories. The factories are buying cattle themselves. They are putting calves on farms. They are working towards owning the cattle industry as well as the meat industry. All of the main players in the meat industry here have invested heavily in Europe and the UK on the back of the profits they are dragging out of Ireland. The Irish-owned meat industry is the only one in Europe that is able to re-invest its profits. This is a huge issue for farmers.

On the issue of live exports, we put six to eight months of work into getting a link into England from Rosslare with Stena Lines, which is now in place. That needs to be utilised fully which means greater numbers of cattle. In that context, we need the help of the State agencies such as Bord Bia, as well as the assistance of the Minister. We need to take a shortcut on this. There are farmers out there today who are bleeding serious money. I have gone into the banks with a number of farmers at this stage in an effort to get the banks to hold off. That is the situation farmers find themselves in - their backs are to the wall as we speak. We do not have time on our side. We need intervention from the Minister now. We need to see that he is on the side of the farmers on this. There are 100,000 livestock farmers in this country, big and small and the small ones are as much affected by this as the larger guys, even if they do not finish animals. The man that used to buy from the small guy does not have the money any more. We need direct intervention now. The meat industry was at the table during the Harvest 2020 discussions with the Department and was an enthusiastic supporter. We have heard all about the new markets but delivery at farm level is down by about 50 cent per kilo. We need to go the direct route and the Department has the solution to many of our problems.