Paraic Brady (Fine Gael)

I will come back in on what Mr. Murphy said about smaller carcases. Kepak was at the National Ploughing Championships. It has carried out trials where schools were incentivised to raise calves from calf to beef and the animals could be killed at a certain carcase weight. I have reservations in this regard. It will certainly meet that demand for the produce of the dairy sector. However, the suckler calf has two markets. He either goes for export, where he is highly sought after with that muscle type, or he has to go into our beef sector. His finish date will certainly be ahead of that of the Angus.

What has been said is correct, but we should have structure and markets, and certainty within that, as well as contracts. I say this in the best of way: this is the only industry where we produce a product where the producer does not know what the end sale price of that product is going to be. It is the only industry in the whole world that this like this. Who in their right mind would want to produce something when they do not know what they are going to get at the end of it? It is only a farmer who would do it. The reality is that we need to get certainty within the markets. Bord Bia, the IFA, the farming organisations and Meat Industry Ireland need to come to the table. We have seen beef already falling in price in the past number of days, even with a strong market demand in Europe.