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

My understanding is that, effectively, quotas were abolished in the North years ago because people were able to buy quota from Britain and therefore they were not constrained by the quota. It appears to have created a big difference between dairy farming in the North and in the South, which shows in the liquid milk market. It also appears to have had the effect of depressing the price because the larger farmers increased their production. One would expect that since the farms are more northerly than the southern counties of this State they would not have any reduced natural production costs as they have a shorter growing season. Has the experience been that one gets what I call treadmill farming? In other words, one increases one's production, the price drops and one ends up trying to just keep the cashflow going. One is selling the product to make sure one gets rid of it. Has that been the net effect of what happened with, effectively, the abolition of quotas in Northern Ireland? Is that likely to be replicated down here?