Mr. Joe Burke:

With regard to live exports, similar to our promotion of beef, we execute campaigns to promote live exports. As the Chairman said, they represent an important source of competition and an alternative outlet to the export meat plants. Interestingly, for the year to date, overall live exports have increased by 36% and up to the beginning of May, 173,000 cattle in total have been exported. The calf exports, which were the focus of much attention this spring, increased by 33% to 143,000 head. There were significant increases even on the back of last year's high levels. As a result of those, calf exports are likely to reach record levels this year, in spite of the difficulty posed by the capacity issue in the lairages in Cherbourg earlier this year, of which we are all too aware. Bord Bia, through our market office colleagues, implements the promotion of our live exports in those markets. We work with customers and in many of these and other markets there are significant customers importing large volumes of calves. They represent an outlet for weanlings or heavier animals.

We were involved in various activities, in conjunction with the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, including trade visits to markets during the past 12 months. We visited the Turkish market to further grow it. We hosted during the past fortnight an inward visit from the Turkish ministry, as well as from the ESK, which is the meat and milk board in Turkey, and which issues many of its import licences. We also worked with veterinary officials of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine recently to secure improved access to the Algerian market.