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

I mentioned hill sheep versus lowland sheep because they are basically two different industries. They are separate. I have a number of questions. Did the Minister give any coherent reason as to why he will not move the money from Pillar 1 to Pillar 2? There is no point in the Minister saying he will not do it, he must give a reason for not doing it. Did he give any coherent reason as to why he is opposed to a coupled payment? Is it an article of faith or did he put forward a logical reason for not favouring a coupled payment? In the case of suckler cows he is paying on the calves but it is effectively a coupled payment, because he will pay on every calf. I am curious about the reasons he gave in those two instances.

Third, do the witnesses accept that even with the €18 million input, the farmers who are over €150 will lose 30% of whatever money is there by convergence, but the farmer under €150, which would include virtually every hill farmer in the country, will lose 100% of that money between now and 2019, unless he can be brought up to €150? There is an easy way to do that. With a stroke of a pen one can make it €150, €160 or €155, but the Minister would have to do that for cattle and sheep for people with very low payments, by saying he will go beyond the 60% minimum payment. He could do it easily, but I am not sure that he can raise the minimum solely for sheep farmers. He could raise the minimum, and raise it to anything he wishes. That might not be a bad idea. What do the witnesses think of that?

Would the witnesses agree that the reason for the low take-up of the sheep technology scheme is that there is very little outside professional knowledge or help regarding pure blackface sheep? Teagasc has some input but, to a certain extent, that sector for the 40 years I have been dealing with it has been left to its own devices. Importing softer breeds into some of the more severe mountains is not a great idea. People from the outside have come up with fancy plans. My first job was to build a sheep fattening station for 2,000 sheep and put 2,000 blackface lambs into it. At the time it was thought to be a great idea but it did not quite work out for many reasons. Then one flies them live to Italy by hiring 737 jet aircraft, filling them with sheep and flying them to Milan. Then halal started killing them. The reality is that we have not really arrived at a solution for how to arrive at a proper carcase weight lamb from the mountain to have sustainable markets either in Portugal or Italy. Certainly, they do not make the French market.

Are the witnesses still pursuing the proposal they made in their document? It was that Bord Bia, Teagasc, farmers, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the processors should get together to try to devise a lamb production system for the hills and a common marketing brand for all blackface hill lambs, by looking at the market requirement and examining how to produce that lamb and, if necessary, produce hoggets rather than lambs to achieve a sustainable sale for mountain lambs, something that has failed during the last 40 years.