Mr. Pat McCormack:

I gave the example of Carbery and there is significant investment going on around the country to try to minimise the shock effect of Brexit, right down to the west Cork coast.

Senator Paul Daly asked a question to which I will respond. The ICMSA is involved with the European Milk Board, EMB, and there is good support and a good understanding of the potential of Brexit in that relationship, in particular the potential of Brexit from an Irish point of view because we have the unique structure of the land border.

Senator Daly also spoke about the bull he bought in Tyrone. It is necessary that UK farmers continue to farm in compliance with the European requirements. One could look more favourably on continued open trade, but it is an imperative that they farm to the European level in compliance with standards for veterinary treatment and medicinal requirements.

Senator O'Reilly mentioned the transition period and good food. The critical issue is that we do not find ourselves tariffed out of the marketplace through significant tariffs that would leave us uncompetitive in the UK. The UK has traditionally followed a fairly merciless food policy on cheap food. We need to find ourselves competitive in the supermarkets.

Part-time farmers were compensated under the beef exceptional aid measure, BEAM, scheme irrespective of whether their off-farm income was earned through a standard job or they are multimillionaire hobby farmers. That is right if those farmers were involved in beef and had a normal or reasonable off-farm income. Equally, it is imperative that men with 42 or 43 cows are also part of the scheme. It should also apply to men with 60 or 80 cows who may be struggling to put two or three kids through college.

Senator Marshall mentioned the Mercosur deal, which is going to put further pressure on farmers. There is 300,000 tonnes of Irish beef going to the UK and we could be trying to relocate a market for that volume of meat at the same time that there will be 99,000 tonnes coming from South America into the EU which is already saturated to the tune of 102%, 103%, 104% or 105%, whatever the figure is, of the available market.