Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses and thank them for their submission.

I wish to ask about Mr. Dowling's interaction with Deputy Michael Collins regarding fifth quarter offal. He referenced a Grant Thornton report that was based on the cost per kill. The task force's submission reads: "the value of beef animals for slaughter averaged over 2018 and 2019, and exclusive of VAT, was €2.2 billion; while the value of sales of beef from Ireland was €2.9 billion; or excluding prepared and preserved products, which may include some element of double counting, €2.7 billion." Does the report exclude the 10% of beef that is consumed on the island and is included in the slaughter value? We export 90%. If that 10% is excluded and the best case scenario for exports was €2.7 billion, the markup on what the report states is the slaughter cost was more than 50%. Does Mr. Dowling not believe that this highlighted something that the task force should have looked into, given that it was set up on the back of farmers' protests about how, due to the prices they were getting, it was possible that many of them would not survive in the industry in 2019?