Mr. John Sheridan:

I chaired its hill farming committee twice for six years. I am also a member of every other farming organisation that I mentioned, including a new Southern organisation, the INHFA, because I have a passion for hill farming and less favoured areas.

The committee members referred to people and produce. If they send us the questions, we will answer them all. Succinctly, some 350,000 sheep a year, that is, almost 1,000 sheep a day, are moved out of the North and into the South for processing. The tariff on sheepmeat is 50% so, if there was a hard Border and we had to sell the North's sheep into Europe, we would be at 50% of a disadvantage on price. On beef, the tariff is 65%. Even if we could afford that tariff, and even if we could get our livestock into southern Ireland, does anyone think for one minute that French farmers would like to see product coming out of the UK, as the North would be labelled? There is not a snowball's hope in hell of that. This is the situation we are in. We will answer those questions, no problem, but a hell of a lot of beef travels both North and South.

It was interesting, and insulting for the communities, that when the food processing and food manufacturing industries are so strong on this island, not a word was heard from them before the referendum. What caution is that? Why was that? Why were they not speaking up? It is unbelievable. The committee is quite right. The whole cost will come down to the primary producer, the farmer, and he cannot afford it. There is no flesh there to stick it out.

In 2008 the geopark in County Fermanagh became the first international UNESCO-recognised geopark in the world. It created £17 million each year from 2012 to 2015, inclusive, or approximately €20 million per year. It is a cross-Border geopark that depends on European funding. Who is going to fund that geopark now? It is a fantastic flagship for Fermanagh and compares with any national park in the South, and it is only one of a number of things there.

I was asked about farming and I will give the figures succinctly. At present, North and South, an average farm is 40 hectares in area with 20 suckler cows and 100 sheep. Based on those figures, because of the green low-carbon agri-environment scheme, GLAS, the genetics scheme, the agri-environment options scheme, AEOS, the areas of natural constraint, ANC, scheme and a sheep grazing headage subsidy scheme, a farmer in the South is at present €20,000 better off than his counterpart in the North, leaving out the single farm payment. This is due to those payments being made through a good rural development fund. Britain always looked for this but it had the lowest rural development fund in all of Europe because it did not want to pay it. The committee members are quite right that the taxpayer does not realise why we are being paid for what we produce. Unfortunately, national and local governments are inclined to gold-plate the rules that come from Europe, but Europe is blamed for creating them in the first place.