Ms Fiona Muldoon:

I cannot and will not talk about a specific case in a public forum. What I will say is that our loss ratio on marts is 160%. We are the only company willing to insure marts. If FBD were to withdraw on the basis of how much money it is losing insuring marts, those marts would no longer be viable and would not be able to open. I do not think anybody in another business is going to step in charitably and offer to insure them. Therefore, we remain the only market for marts in the country, and the reason we write them at a loss is that they are so important to half our customer base, the farming community and agri-related sectors.

There are enormous health and safety issues in the mart environment with regard to animals, where they are kept, how they are handled, the employer liability the co-operatives that operate the marts are subject to and how they are held accountable.