Mr. Seamus Sherlock:

Reports lead us to believe that a lot of stolen goods leave the country.

There is a serious problem with quad bikes, which are being stolen weekly. Apparently, many of them are leaving the country. At any meeting we go to, we advise members not to purchase equipment from anywhere unless it is a reputable source. Much of this is being put into containers and shipped out of the country. There may be bits and pieces at the odd car boot sale. This comes back to the marking system and it is now easier to mark equipment so it can be scanned to prove it is owned by a certain person. It is that simple. We encourage our members to mark their equipment. It probably will not stop it being stolen but there is a better chance of getting it back. Gardaí regularly tell me they find stuff that nobody has reported as stolen so they cannot give it back. Even on the news we often see the Garda displaying a couple of hundred items, including smaller stuff like drills rather than farm machinery, and the owner cannot be found. The problem is some farmers are not marking the equipment and others are not even admitting it was stolen. Many farmers tell me a chainsaw might have been five or six years old and they would have a new one bought in the time they took to report it stolen. It is not the point, as this feeds into the system as far as we are concerned. These guys are not going around stealing for the sake of it. They are stealing because there is a market for the equipment.