Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

For how much longer will farmers take this? For how much longer do the witnesses think they will get cheap cattle in? They are losing data that would tell them when cattle are reaching certain times so that they could bring them out of the feedlots. I do not know at what point the cattle are being taken to the factories. This is what the factories are doing. They are bringing out the cattle to drive down the price of beef at certain times when they know an amount of cattle is coming in. When the price of beef goes down, does it come down in the supermarket? It does not. It goes down for the farmer. I do not know who is benefitting in the middle but the consumer certainly does not benefit. The price stays the same for the consumer so who is codding whom? The honest truth is that when the price comes down for the beef farmer, and it is very low at the moment, no consumer tells me, "Ah sure, we're getting the meat for nothing now." That is not happening. Consumers are paying the same price.