Mr. Michael Crosse:

With regard to marginal land, in fairness, our land in Cashel is of very good quality. We really tried to push grazing in our early years and to get grassland management up to a very high standard. However, the sheep ultimately need a little bit of kindness, particularly at night-time and especially early in the season. These sheep are producing three or four times as much output as a conventional sheep. Early in the lactation period, they need and respond to a little bit of kindness. Housing at night is a big part of that, particularly early in the season when the conditions are not right. However, sheep can go on any kind of land most days of the year because they are light on the ground so they are suitable for areas all over the country. The most suitable farmers for this industry are people who are already doing dry stock, most likely sheep and cattle, to a high standard and who manage grassland well. They probably also have good-quality facilities already and are grant-aided. Such people can transition to sheep farming very easily because the housing is already suitable. You can start off with fewer milking sheep and make a living pretty quickly because a large capital outlay is not required.

The one failing of the sheep dairy industry in Ireland has been investment in milking facilities. Historically, in Ireland and across a lot of the world, milking sheep took hours and hours. That just will not work. Sheep milking needs to hit the same efficiency as cow milking. One person should be able to milk 400 ewes in one hour and come back refreshed in the afternoon to do it again. If we cannot do that, the industry will not stack up. The ability to be competitive in the world market is about labour efficiency, cost efficiency and having a really resilient system so that, if the price is poor at some time, the business will be strong and in a position to ride it out. The benefit to the dairy industry of resilience in the cost of production can be seen today. This year, when inflation was going through the roof, the cow dairy industry felt it to a lesser degree than many other industries and got all the benefits of the higher price.