Mr. Barclay Bell:

I may bring the chief executive in at different times. There is quite a range of questions.

Senator Daly touched on was regulation. We only have to ask some of our producers in, for example, the vegetable sector, who is driving the regulation. They will say that it was not the EU regulation that really bothered them, but the regulation from the retailers. Some of our farmers got hung up about regulation, that there was going to be a bonfire of regulation, but we would see this more as an evolution of regulation. Some of the regulation that has perhaps come out of Brussels has been very difficult for farmers to understand. It has not been science based. What we are saying is that any new regulation has to be science based and there might be a change in the delivery of the regulation, but we are adamant that regulation is here to stay. Retailers will drive regulation. We will have to satisfy that regulation and there is a full recognition out there that if we want to export product into the EU, we will have to meet those standards. It might be more the case that there will be a simplification of the regulation and its delivery. Commissioner Hogan has indicated that he wants to try to continue to simplify the regulation within the EU.

There was a question of how we were getting on with Stormont before it fell. We were making good inroads there. The worth of the agrifood industry to Northern Ireland is recognised across all political parties in the North when one considers this is an industry worth over £4.5 billion to Northern Ireland. In the wider agrifood industry, including processing, over 100,000 jobs are hooked on the industry. We are convinced that our politicians in Northern Ireland fully understand what the agrifood industry is all about, but the bigger fear is whether that message gets through across the water in Whitehall. That is why, along with everyone in the North at the moment, they want to see Stormont back up and running. We need representation there, fighting our corner. We are in a good place on recognition around the importance of the agrifood industry.

We have strong links with the Irish Farmers Association and we meet on a regular basis. There is a recognition that the Border is a key issue in all of this when one considers that we may well have farmers who are farming North and South because their lands straddle the Border. We are told there are 250 or 260 roads crossing the Border, never mind all the little farm tracks. I do not think anyone wants to see us going back to a hard border, but there will have to be a lot of thinking on how we find imaginative solutions. We have good relations and meet regularly; we attended the IFA's big event in Goffs recently. We meet Joe Healy and the team in Brussels quite often too. There is a good line of communication there.

What was Senator Daly's exact question on trade? Was it about the Aberdeen Angus?