Mr. John Comer:

I note with interest that the committee is seeking specifics and specific solutions. If only it were that simple. I must revert to the questions of what we can do and what we can do best. Senator Paul Daly referred to these. About two weeks ago, for example, Monsieur Hillairet, a significant agricultural representative in Europe, was suggesting France should insist on a hard border between the European Union and Ireland, effectively. What we need to do is set the record straight with these people. We counteracted that as an organisation and we must ensure that kind of sentiment does not get any chance to graft at all. To return to what Senator Paul Daly was saying, we have got to build the alliances and put out a big umbrella of diplomacy. We have got to try to come up with a final solution in terms of a trade deal that represents the status quo. I believe deep down that is also what the United Kingdom really wants. People in the United Kingdom representing the population got a result at the ballot box but they know that economically, socially and environmentally, they were better off where they were. It is a matter of not backing anybody into a corner and making sure that we come up with creative language to effect a deal that remains closely with the status quo. Even with a soft Border, there is no business for a low-margin business. In this regard, consider all those lorry journeys over and back. There is no business, even with a paper trail, and it imposes a cost on the industry, unless the consumer pays. I do not believe that is going to happen.

The Acting Chairman asked whether we are good at pointing out the uniqueness of Ireland. We need to move on to similarities, the common part of the European Union and why we should all be in this together to make a good deal for all the Union. We have nuances and differences but we need to strike a deal together.

I was asked specifically about cheese. There is no other market. The percentage is 60%, or 108,000 tonnes of cheddar, a massive amount. Simply put, carnage would be created in rural Ireland in terms of what was referred to by my colleague, Mr. Brian Kavanagh, namely, employment in the areas that are regional and outside the Pale. There is no way to dress it up and there is no point in putting forward propositions with solutions in this regard because there is none; it is simple. We have to face up to that, and people have to know the enormous impact and fallout we will experience unless we get a tariff-free arrangement. The solution, of course, is tariff-free access to the UK market. As I was saying in my presentation, even were Ms Tara McCarthy, the CEO of Bord Bia, to be given magic juice or serendipity juices to drink every day of the week, she could not find new markets. It would take ten years. It is not because of lazy marketing that we were trading so heavily on the United Kingdom; it was because it was the most lucrative market that was geographically closest.

Let me address Senator Michelle Mulherin's questions. With the permission of the Acting Chairman, I will ask my colleague, our CEO, Mr. John Enright, to address some issues I have probably forgotten. The Senator referred to the low-interest agricash. We were clearly on the record as saying that while low-interest loans are welcome, they should be the norm. It should not have to be brought around to 2.95%. Irish agriculture pays €80 million more per annum in interest than its counterparts in Europe. We should have the competition in Ireland. We should get the money at a much cheaper rate. We disagreed fundamentally in regard to the low-interest loans because they were associated with a crisis measure funded through the European Union. We felt that was not a reaction to a crisis at the time because the volatility, as the Senator rightly pointed out, resulted in a drop from 40 cent per litre down to 22 cent per litre. No industry could withstand that level of volatility and expect to come out financially fit at the end of it. What we did welcome and what is a new initiative in Europe that has got to be followed through on is the voluntary supply constraint. The Commissioner is open to making it a permanent tool. There was another €150 million spent on that. Immediately it was announced it had the capacity to bring the milk price back up to roughly 32 cent per litre, because there was more equilibrium in the marketplace. When one makes a business decision to put one's cow in calf, one has to wait nine months for the calf to be born and two years for it to come into the parlour. There is no way, with a product such as dairy, which has a three-year lead-in, that a farmer or businessperson can know the position of the markets in three years. Therefore, the free market will not work for agriculture. It never has and it is detrimental to the consumers. A nuanced approach such as the voluntary supply constraint was very welcome. Eventually it was accepted by the politicians, was very effective and worked.

I hope I have not left anybody out. I invite my colleague to contribute.