Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

First, I agree with Mr. Flanagan on the rainy day fund. There should be some sort of a tax system to work with that that could help the farmer.

To put it simply, you will go through hills and hollows in order to get to a level playing field. I agree with that 100%. I do not agree with has been said about the banks for one simple reason. Above all men, I am no fan of them, given some of the stuff I saw happening, but the reason I say this is because a business plan had to be done if somebody was getting into milk. It was based on 28 cent a litre for someone borrowing fairly heavily. When the banks saw that 31 cent or 32 cent was guaranteed, they knew this person was fairly sound. To be frank about it, they had to do it to get the money but, as Mr. O'Gorman has pointed out, the cost of producing the milk has gone up by at least 8 cent and it is probably 10 cent or 12 cent more than what it was then, especially with the price of meal and everything else. If it is okay with the Vice Chairman, I am going to write to the committee to propose that at the next private meeting, we bring in the people who are buying the biggest volume of milk from the co-operatives. That is still a part of the whole system in Ireland. We must find a solution to this for the farmers. I thank the witnesses for coming in.