William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)

I thank the officials for attending and clearing up our concerns. I very much welcome food regulation. It is something that we all sought for many years.

I wish Mr. Joe Healy well and he is Chair of the board. The office of the Agri-Food Regulator is only in its infancy and getting off the ground. There is a lot more legislation to be put in place so that the people with the responsibility can carry out their duties. I have no doubt that once the legislation is passed and the Minister confers responsibilities upon them then we will be able to get exactly what everybody has talked about here today because at the moment it can only ask and if you voluntarily do not contribute the information to the regulator then it cannot actually get it out of them.

The situation will change rapidly because the Minister has given a commitment that he is going to do that and we will see huge change, and rightly so. Prices have escalated for beef and butter, which is what we are all talking about at the moment, but there are reasons and blame cannot be pinned on farmers. Until we can see exactly where supermarkets, etc., make their profits then we will not have a true answer. The Minister has promised that change will happen. In the meantime, we must address all of the associated issues.

We are talking about the offal from cattle. There was a time when pigs were killed and the owner was not paid for the pig's head and crubeens but an Act or whatever was passed which meant that payment for both items had to be made because the pigs' heads and crubeens were for sale to the public. I hope this is what all the regulator is about.

The Agri-Food Regulator will have a wide brief. I look forward to when the regulator gets down into the nuts and bolts of it and sees what has happened, the profits, and where profits were made and where they went. On the other hand, it is regrettable that there is so few cattle. I am sure Deputy Fitzmaurice will agree with me because he can see the same in Roscommon and several counties. Without question, everywhere one drives it is obvious because one sees an ever decreasing number of cattle, which I think will be a huge problem down the line. I am sure everyone will agree with me that it would have been preferable if all these regulations had been put in place because we would not have nearly 200,000 suckler cows gone out of the national herd. We will not have them back, which is shameful and terrible. It really hits me, as a farmer, to see all the finest of stockmen having had to let go all their good cattle because they could not make a profit. One generation after the other saw that a farmer's life is not for them because there is no profit to be made. That is what happened and is why a lot of people changed market and went into milk production.

I ask the officials to help us by telling us what extra powers the regulator should get than what has been proposed by the Minister. I ask because I do not know but the officials will know because of their years of experience working in the Department. I would love if that information could be sent to the clerk to the committee as it would benefit us all.

I am not saying that we just get one bite of the cherry. When the Minister does sit down to look at what he can do to strengthen the power of the regulator we need to be able to say please include A, B, C and D. I know that he will include the pricing provision so the regulator will be able to say, "We want to know how much you are charging for a product and how much was paid for it," which will be eye-opening information.