Mr. Tim Cullinan:

In response to Senator Lombard, we are clear about where the industry is heading. Between 7% and 10% of farmers have exited it. The Senator made his point clearly. I quoted figures from Teagasc, a State body, that up to 30% of farmers could exit the sector. Our original proposal is from farmers and industry coming together, which is unique, that we are willing to pay a statutory levy for the next 15 years to ensure the viability of the sector. It is not just about farmers. As the Senator said, there are milling and processing sectors too. The cumulative value of the sector is €1.7 billion in output and 8,000 people employed. It is larger than Intel. If the Minister was able to announce next week that another international company similar to Intel was entering the country, it would be the top headline on the 9 o'clock news. We have a sector which supports 8,000 jobs in rural communities, which we are trying to protect. There will be losses of approximately €160 million, which is serious for farmers. There is an issue with credit on pig farms. They cannot continue to pay for the extraordinary price increases, with the cost of ingredients rising by 130%. We are concerned about this proposal. Like the committee, I sincerely hope that we have a clear decision about it before leaving this evening.

In response to Deputy Carthy, regarding the alternative package, it was frustrating that our farmers had to come to Dublin. We had a protest outside Agriculture House two weeks ago, seeking negotiations about this. There did not seem to be any urgency or concern in the Department, but a belief that the original package of €7 million would resolve a serious problem, which was not the case. Farmers had to come to Dublin and were willing to stay on the street 24-7 until we got a solution. We negotiated with the Minister. Mr. Buckley will speak on the proposal he was involved in negotiating with the Minister's officials. It is important to have clarity on that. The Deputy rightly pointed out the impact of Brexit on the Irish pig sector's exports, with a decrease in the value and volume of pig meat entering the UK market. That had an impact on the sector early on.

As the Deputy said, there is a Brexit adjustment reserve fund of more than €1 billion. We have not heard anything from the Minister or Government about where that funding will go. We have an opportunity to use the fund to offset the losses that we incurred in the UK market. There was a serious issue with the export of live pigs to Northern Ireland in the summer of 2021, which created serious issues for farmers in the South. They lost revenue and were not able to get pigs off their farms for a period. Thankfully, a resolution has been found and the pigs have moved off the farms, which is important, but it was costly.

On the office of transparency, I sincerely hope we will not end up with a quango again. I refer to the beef task force. Grant Thornton was commissioned by the Government to examine the margins in the food supply chain. It failed to do so and the Minister committed to introduce primary legislation for a food regulator to ensure this would never happen again. I sincerely hope it will happen. We have to go much further. I was in Brussels on Monday and am delighted to report that Spain has introduced legislation on below-cost selling. There is no reason that we cannot do so. We recently saw a report from Jim Power that was done on our behalf about compression by discounters and the untold damage they do to the retail sector, the pig sector and other sectors in this country that rely on the retailer. Mr. Buckley might provide an update on funding.