Mr. James Healy:

With regard to the ICBF and the five star bulls, our members have a strong belief in scientific evidence.

We asked our members and, while no system is perfect and there are tweaks that need to be made to it, they have a belief in the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, ICBF, and the work it is doing. We have seen the impact that the economic breeding index, EBI, has had in the dairy sector and if matching results can be achieved in the beef sector, it has to take us in the right direction. There is a discussion to be had about whether there is a need to tweak which traits are weighted, and how, but the scientific evidence is leading down that path and that is the only way to go. There is a terminal index as well as a maternal index and farmers need to make choices around that.

On the beef forum, as I said, it is better to be around the table than not around the table. We made suggestions at the time that there needs to be concrete actions from each meeting and the forum needs to meet more regularly. The forum cannot only meet when there is a crisis. If the forum is to have a real impact it needs to be like this committee and meet regularly and quickly to come up with and action solutions. The findings of this committee should be the prompt for another beef forum meeting where the actions that this committee recommends are discussed and, if agreement can be reached, actioned.

Feedlots started in different ways and have different reasons for their existence but, as I said earlier to Deputy Penrose, they are, in some cases, a market distortion tool for reasons that have been discussed at length. Putting in a definition of "active farmer" similar to the one we have proposed would go some way at least to addressing this and ensuring payments are targeted at the right sorts of people and those who are exploiting the system are not rewarded.

From the point of view of a young farmer, many young farmers start off with a small block of land and we have discussed the difficulties of accessing land at length across various committees. If exporting slurry is a way for a young farmer to make his or her block of land viable, we cannot take that tool away from them.

The Chairman mentioned a couple of places and asked what can be done. Macra's policy on the home farm has identified a number of key performance indicators that beef farmers should be aiming to hit. A farmer who is achieving those will be among the top beef farmers but will also be heading in the right direction for making more money. Those indicators include having a cow calf at 24 months and a calving interval of 365 days, as Mr. Punch mentioned. We also mentioned utilising grass much better. There are targets there which might not necessarily be as applicable as some of the ones that have been mentioned but, on the ground a farmer has, he or she must be utilising grass as much as possible.

Processors need more certainty of income and that can be achieved through forward selling or contracts with farmers. The retailers from Meat Industry Ireland will be before the committee and there is no reason for those retailers not to be brought in. The 30-month rule has been mentioned and there are other rules that have been discussed today and we need to be provided with the reasons those rules are in place.

We have put together a very strong CAP proposal. It has been well received and rather than pitting any sector against another, we have concentrated on what will benefit young farmers. That is where we believe the money is required and we need to be persuading young people across all sectors to enter farming.

The market will dictate whether Friesian bullocks or high-quality animals will leave the country and whatever will make the most profit for the beef farmer is what will be most suitable to leave. There is a discussion among our membership about calves from the dairy sector and there is more of a partnership and collaborative effort between dairy and beef farmers. There are farm-to-farm sales between dairy and beef farmers who are working together to get progeny from which they can make a profit.

We have mentioned sexed semen in a number of pre-budget submissions at this point and we see it as a key part of the future of the beef and dairy sectors. There are questions about the qualities of the bulls available through artificial insemination, AI, and sexed AI in particular but some of our members are taking part in those trials and they are seeing the benefits. There are some differences in reliability between fresh and frozen semen. We need to look at the AI companies that are taking the step of setting up a centre in this country for developing fresh sexed semen.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae asked what we can do for the suckler farmer and we have plenty of members in south Kerry and Kerry as a whole who are not shy about telling us their problems. Keeping young people in rural Ireland is not just down to beef farming or farming in general. There is no silver bullet or single solution for suckler farmers but, similar to what we believe about young farmers, the more tools one has in the toolbox, the better one's ability to improve the lot for beef farmers. It will not be fixed overnight but the more focus that is put on it the better.