Kate O'Connell (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Perfect.

In terms of the €100 million Brexit fund for beef to which Deputy Aylward referred, Mr. Gleeson suggested this could mean a reduction in beef herd numbers. I am worried about that. We are number one for efficiency vis-à-visgreenhouse gas emissions in the dairy sector and number five in the beef sector. We are improving all of the time in terms of education and Teagasc is doing great work with genomics and so on. I understand the argument here in terms of climate change, agriculture and the pressures we are under. However, greenhouse gas is in the air above all of us in Europe. We are exporting over 90% of our agricultural products and are feeding almost 60 million people in Europe. We are now looking at feeding people further afield. Why would it be efficient to reduce beef numbers? We have to eat. Would it not be much better to invest the money in breeding, genomics and improving our number five position in Europe to number one or number two? Obviously if there is a hard Brexit and the beef industry is hit very hard, farmers will need a subvention in order to be able to pay their bills but in terms of the longer-term use of taxpayers' money, it does not seem to make any sense for the Secretary General of the Department to propose a voluntary reduction in beef numbers. Perhaps I am pulling him up on the wrong point but I would have thought his remit was to promote beef and the efficient production of same.