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

We have been given a great deal of information this afternoon. The bottom line is that there is a significant number of farmers with bulls they cannot sell or can only sell at a significant loss. If I understand correctly, the Bord Bia representatives are saying that the British market wants steer beef and the continental market will take the bull beef and, moreover, that the price on the Continent has been dropping while the price in Britain is at an all-time high. That seems a neat picture, but it does not explain the huge price differential between cattle started in Britain and their equivalents in Ireland. Can the Bord Bia delegates explain why the average cattle price in a factory here has, in the past six to eight months, been much lower than it is in Britain? I agree that we must compare like with like - steer with steer, bull beef with bull beef - but is it really the case that British consumers are willing to pay much more for British beef on the supermarket shelf than for Irish beef? Perhaps there are people with sufficient expertise in the beef trade to understand the logic of the situation, but it is not at all clear to us.

We have been following prices and the price differential in the factories. This is where the issue of live exports arises. Perhaps a representative from Bord Bia will respond to the following question. If one could get Irish beef into a factory in Britain, would one be paid the British price for it and, if not, why not? Why, in an open market, does Irish beef not make the same price as British beef?

Teagasc appears to be in favour of 18-month-old bull beef. Somewhere in the mix, however, Bord Bia and the factories seem to be advising that all beef should be 16-month-old bull beef. If I understand the position correctly, following this advice is not economic. I understand the major problem for farmers is that their beef does not meet the 16-month specification. Were the factories involved in the Derrypatrick idea to which Professor Boyle referred? While the data provided are interesting and fascinating, members will need time to study them. Were the factories aware of the view expressed by Teagasc that extra time creates much greater cost efficiency and other options are not viable? Did the factories warn the marketing personnel of Bord Bia that this approach would not work because the price would plummet if the beef was not 16 months old?

Bord Bia indicated that farmers should have spoken to their processor before getting involved in bull beef. I would not be satisfied discussing the issue with my processor as processors can always adopt the position of that was then and this is now. Is it common in the trade for producers to be given an irrevocable deal on the end price before purchasing animals? What percentage of farmers and finishers have a contract that provides for an end price at the start of the process? My understanding from the figures is that the price for bull beef has collapsed and unless a farmer has an irrevocable agreement with the factory setting down the end price, they will be told by the processor when they go looking for the cheque that processors have no control over the market, the market has changed, animals being exported to the Continent cannot be sold, and so on. I am interested in hearing our guests firm up the argument they make about talking to the processor first. The presentation uses the words "only produced on contract with a processor". Are contracts setting out a final price for the beef readily available? Talking to the processor will not do a heap of good if the price can change before the end of the contract.

When a large number of people lose out, it is often easy for people in the system to refer to various caveats. The world does not work like that, however, because the person left holding the can is the bull beef producer, many of whom are suffering substantial losses.

Last autumn, long before the present crisis arose, I put the following question to the farming organisations and others. Why can one not put an animal on a truck in Dublin and transport it via the shortest sea route - Dublin to Holyhead - straight into factories in Britain? All sorts of reasons have been cited, including the possibility that animal rights activists would be waiting on the other side. Animal rights activists do not appear to be concerned about the practice of loading animals on trucks here and transporting via Larne and Cairnryan to the south of England. This is a much more stressful journey for animals. Why is it practically impossible to transport live cattle via the shortest sea route to Britain when there is no problem transporting animals from this island to Cairnryan? The committee has spent six or eight months trying to get a straight answer to that straight question. What is the real reason? The absence of an answer makes some of us highly suspicious that different interests are at play, some of which have no connection with animal health and welfare.