Professor Gerry Boyle:

I thank the Senator for his good wishes. He asked a number of substantive questions. I will deal with some and hand over to Dr. O'Mara.

Starting with my good friend, Colm McCarthy's comment in the Irish Farmers' Journal, he has been saying this for a long time, and, as a fellow economist, I absolutely agree with him. The theoretical position in respect of consumers paying carbon taxes is well established. Unfortunately, we have to deal with the practical policies that are in front of us. I guess as the years go by we will probably see more of that perspective coming onto the agenda but at present we are very much aware that the imposition in terms of restrictions is on production, in particular, on the products and associated carbon outputs.

The Senator asked an important question regarding timelines in respect of when we will have solid, robust information on an individual farm basis. I assume what he is referring to there is on a basis that we would be able to present data for the majority of farms in the country. At least that would cover the majority of production because, as the Senator will be aware, at present we have good information from the national farm survey, which is a sample of farms that are representative of the national farms in the country. We are able to extract from that survey robust carbon footprint information and also information on the basis of the volume of carbon that is produced on a per-farm basis, and that is statistically representative. We were doing this for a number of years. We publish this every year. In fact, we were particularly pleased to see that the European Commission took the decision some time ago to have a similar focus right across Europe in respect of the Farm Accountancy Data Network to which we supply the information. That is one source.

Most importantly, and Dr. O'Mara might elaborate on that, part of our strategy is to implement the measures that we have produced from the research contained in the so-called marginal abatement cost curve, MACC. We will implement those on farms through a programme we are calling the Signpost farm programme, which will commence in the middle of next month. That will see us being able to measure carbon on a detailed basis across the country, admittedly, on a small number of farmers, but in a way that will provide additional information in respect of what is happening at farm level. That database will also be used to measure carbon sequestration using the most up-to-date equipment available to us.

In terms of scaling that up, part of the Signpost programme is to involve ourselves directly, not only with the farming organisations and the food and meat companies but also with State agencies that have a similar interest, such as Bord Bia. Of course, we will work closely with Bord Bia to make sure that we are harvesting the information from its quality assurance programme that feeds directly in to providing the kind of information that the Senator recognises as being needed. Clearly we would then be in agreement.

As far as the Signpost farm programme is concerned, I hope we would kick it off in the middle of next month. I would certainly hope that within a year we would have more of the kind of information that the Senator is looking for. Of course, we will put every effort then into making sure that is scalable and representative of the total farming situation.

I will hand over the questions on carbon leakage and what is meant by a stable, national bovine herd to Dr. O'Mara.