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

I apologise for not being present at the beginning of the presentation, but I looked at it before I left. Unfortunately, I had another appointment.

While a great deal of information has been given, the delegates should look at the big picture. The big picture is that one group, the beef factories, keep making a comparison with EU prices, when the nearest and biggest single market for our beef is Britain. If prices were flat across Europe, it would be understandable that they would be flat here. However, in a free open market where, according to EU rules, everybody can sell equally where he or she wishes and what he or she wishes, the yardstick must be the British price. Nothing that has been said deals with that question.

In the past few months it appears that more barriers have been erected to trade. There should be a situation where one can sell wherever one wishes but, for some remarkable reason, it appears to be very difficult to get live cattle into Britain. However, as ICOS proved, the price of Irish beef on supermarket shelves in Britain is the same as that of British beef. There appear to be many new difficulties in obtaining proper prices for Irish cattle in the North of Ireland. They appear to be becoming nomads in their own land. I might be a simple guy, but as far as I am concerned, an animal born, bred, reared and slaughtered on the island of Ireland is Irish. It is extraordinary that free trade is not only breaking down across the European Union but also on the island of Ireland.

I have a number of questions. First, what changes have been made to the carcase specifications and what was the reason for making them?

When did labelling changes across the Border come into effect? What was the level of price drop for finishers when one compares January and February 2014 figures with the same period in 2013, after the average price with all of the discounts, out-of-spec reductions, etc., have been taken into account? I do not want the premium versus premium figure only to learn that a lot of cattle that would have made premium last year did not meet premium this year. I seek the average prices.

I am particularly interested in Polish beef. How much Polish beef has been imported for further processing in Irish factories here? Where has it been sold? Under what brand is it being sold? What arrangements are in place or what checks are carried out by the food authorities and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine to ensure that there is transparency in the transmission of the beef to the final market and to ensure we do not have another horsemeat issue, where we do not know what came in or where it came from and where it went to?

I have another relevant question. How many cattle are being fattened by farmers on contract for the meat plants? Meat plants are contracting farmers to fatten cattle for them more often, and I am curious to know the figure. How many cattle are involved at any one time? What is the peak number of cattle that the meat plants have had fattened on contract? The factories own the cattle and can decide whether to bring them in as they see fit.

There seems to be a total lack of communication in the beef industry. I have been told by a lot of farmers and people who work with the agri-industry who have no personal involvement in farming that farmers have been encouraged by Teagasc and other groups to produce bull beef, that they were not told that it all had to be under 16 months of age and that they took the advice. Perhaps I misunderstood the witnesses, but I got the very clear impression that they said MII had, for some considerable time and way beyond the cycle that we are talking about, advised against the production of bull beef and said that people should produce steer beef. Can the delegation outline whether it gave that advice or whether Teagasc was privy to that advice? If we have a disjointed industry in which factories need one thing and the main advisory service that people look to for advice advises a totally different thing, then it is time we got communications together in the industry. I would be very surprised if Teagasc had been advised by the factories and encouraged the production of the wrong type of animal. I would be surprised if it took the risk of encouraging farmers to produce the wrong type of beef for the factories.

I have two final questions. Has there been much of a tightening up in supervision and the transmission of goods within the meat processing industry since the horsemeat scandal last year? Has it in any way contributed to what was in-spec last year suddenly becoming out-of-spec this year, because there is much more rigid control of the animals going through and much better labelling and because now an item must be called whatever it really is? People have said that the huge extra controls are a bit like the land parcel identification system for farmers. In other words, it is a lot more accurate this year than it was last year. Has this been a contributing factor in what has happened to the factories?