Mr. Phil Hogan:

I cannot provide clarity on something that is not finalised. The Government must include it as part of its rural development measure in order to get over the State aid issue. Once it does that, it will enter into negotiations about the matter the Chairman asked about with the European Investment Bank directly and will find the distribution channel or financial institution that will do that in the member state. We are at the principle stage today in the launch of this new initiative. Ireland has not formally decided to get involved but I presume it will. That includes the market volatility mentioned by Deputy Deering. He mentioned the beef industry. It is very difficult to give market certainty in respect of beef without looking for the assets of the farm. What we are trying to do with milk is to deal with price volatility on the basis that the milk cheque is for security so we are discussing that. We had discussions today with the European Investment Bank about it.