Mr. Henry O'Donnell:

I do not know what happened with Mr. Roddy. He was there until the last minute. In order to keep our market at home relatively stable, we must move these calves so any possible alternative needs to be investigated. Mr. Cullinan mentioned that Teagasc is doing work on that. It needs to investigate that fully as quickly as possible. Regardless of whether we are sitting here discussing Brexit or anything else, it is very important that these calves are moved out of our system. If not, it will put even more pressure on our beef industry, which is returning little enough for farmers at present.

Regarding trade between North and South, what we need is clarity on how the Northern Ireland protocol will work. If we have been promised a frictionless border between North and South, that is what is needs to be. Lambs need to be able to come from Northern Ireland, be processed and be sold anywhere as Irish lamb - and I mean anywhere in the world.

We need clarity on that. We also need clarity on the possibility of livestock coming from Britain into Northern Ireland and what will happen those animals. We cannot have that as a mechanism to undermine our own industry in Ireland. We need clarity on how that is going to be done. Everybody knows that the live trade of cattle from the South to the North has increased substantially recently. As to whether that is pre-planning or pre-stocking for Brexit, nobody is giving me very clear answers. From a farming perspective, whatever happens with Brexit, we need that facility to be allowed to continue.

As I said earlier, I still have some concerns with our processing industry, which is very active in Britain as well as in Ireland. We cannot have our primary producers manipulated in such as way that the only people who make any profit from the beef industry are the processors. Whatever protocols are put in place need to be cognisant of that, so that farmers do not fall foul and be the ones in the middle and who yet again lose out as the primary producer with no power over the produce we actually produce. Perhaps I might hand back to Mr. Roddy now.