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

I heard with interest what Mr Fennell said about the weight of sheep. I agree that Bord Bia has to try to satisfy the market, but on the other hand we have to recognise that there are physical limitations to what can be done. It is easy enough to get the sheep on the margins of the hills, in hill farms with kinder hills and better lowland up to what we call French weights, but further into the hills, in places like Recess, the sheep get smaller. I know from personal experience that trying to get them up to the required weight is nearly impossible. A farmer could put a lot of meal into a sheep and it would not really be the same animal at all by the time it was finished. Over the years it has been a major challenge that some farmers in places like the Chairman comes from buy sheep, put them into a green field and think these lovely mountain sheep are going to fatten. There are two problems. They are very slow to fatten on grass and they end up in every dris and every hedge they can find for five miles around and will not stay in the middle of the lush green field. Then the farmers will not come back again because they figure these are impossible animals, that they are like the Deputies from that part of the world - difficult enough.