Mr. Sean Coughlan:

We do not get data back from the slaughter factories in Italy, for example. However, we have the mart data and the price per kilogramme data which are very good indicators of the confirmation. We also have the farmer scoring the calf quality of the animals. Those data are all feeding into the prediction of carcass information and they are very good predictors. While it would be optimal to receive information from the Italian factories, it is not necessary to make a good prediction.

Deputy Fitzmaurice asked the reason twins could have different Euro-star ratings given that they have the same father and mother. This issue arose at a few of the meetings we held. To take one example, there should be no difference between young twin calves.

In one example I looked at, the sire had been recorded on one of the calves but not on the other. Immediately there was a clear reason they would be different. I was asked about animals with the same sire and dam and why their Euro-Star ratings would vary. As we get data on the animals themselves, it is only natural that they start to separate. Full brothers or sisters will perform differently depending on the data that are recorded. That includes the weights of the calves they are weaning, calving intervals and how long they stay in herds. Those will have different influences on the star ratings. Just because they are from the same sire and dam, as they gather more data of their own, they will start to differ in terms of their star ratings.