Ms Sinéad McPhillips:

The Department shares that concern. We have had detailed discussions, as I mentioned, with Commissioner Hogan and officials from DG Agriculture and Rural Development about the avenues of EU support that might be available. We stressed the urgency of deploying those measures immediately if that worst case scenario transpires. The avenues we have been discussing include traditional market supports under the Common Market organisation regulations such as aids to private storage and public intervention. There is also exceptional aid available under that regulation.

The Minister has made the point strongly that those traditional market supports are not adequate to maintain beef prices because the intervention rate is set at a very low level and would not be impactful on the crisis we would be facing. We have focused on the ask in terms of exceptional aid. That has been deployed by the EU in the past. A particularly relevant example is when the Russian ban was introduced in 2014 and exceptional aid was used to help the Baltic states and Finland, whose market was basically wiped out overnight as a result of the ban. There was a rapid EU response and deployment of exceptional aid for those countries.

The other avenue we are pursuing, apart from the Common Market organisation regulation, is that relating to state aid regulations. General state aid is administered by DG Competition. Along with colleagues in the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation, we have had a lot of discussion with DG Competition on those general state aids, mainly for the processing sector. We have also discussed state aid under agriculture guidelines with experts in DG Agriculture and Rural Development and what flexibility might be available.

There has been a willingness on the part of the EU to engage in detailed discussions. The deployment of those instruments would be urgent if the worst-case scenario transpires. That is what the Minister will be pushing for.