Mr. Cormac Healy:

The Chairman is right that there was a beef private storage scheme. No, I think there was an application for perhaps 20 tonnes. It was a scheme of 25,000 tonnes announced by the European Commission but we had made the point throughout that the scheme would not work and was not suitable. We are going into other areas now, but the scheme was structured such that almost the entire carcass needed to be put into it, whereas there was probably an outlet for some of the cuts from the animal into retail or whatever else. However, the scheme required everything to be put into it.

It was also at aid rates that were not significant because once one goes in there, one freezes it down and it devalues. For that reason, it was not really picked up across Europe. Actually, I saw today that overall measure has been closed by the European Commission. I am happy to come back on those figures if there is any misunderstanding.