Mr. Tadhg Buckley:

About the processing side of it, in our address we outlined what we think could be the estimated job losses and the impact. It is massive. Obviously, it is a huge issue for them as well. As Mr. Drennan said, farmers nearly own all the processing sector in Ireland.

Milk supply in Ireland dropped by over 4% in 2023. We are down 365 million litres on 2022. It is a massive drop. People cannot take it for granted that we will continue to sustain the milk supply that we had in 2021-2022. We have seen a big drop this year.

Sentiment among dairy farmers is not good. Sentiment used always be related to milk price but it is actually not now. Obviously, it is hugely important, but it is the regulation side of it and the lack of certainty. It was commented earlier on. If you are a young person now and you are looking at the sector, you are there wondering whether this is a sector you want to get into. That, from my perspective, is an uncomfortable position for us to be in if we want to make sure. There is huge money invested in this sector, both at on-farm and at processing levels, and if we want to make sure we do not have stranded assets all over the country, be it on-farm or at processor levels, we have got to work together to make sure we do not see a removal of this derogation. It cannot happen.