Paraic Brady (Fine Gael)

Well, that is the first thing I would recommend has to change because Teagasc is a semi-State body.

We will go back to ACA's organisation. There are codes of conduct within its organisation, so everything is transparent from top to bottom. What is the problem then? This is not ringing out right. There is something wrong here. The witnesses represent 64,500 farmers. My Teagasc adviser and I were doing training last week, only the other night. As regards the service he provides, one of the schemes now is blackleg vaccinations, which involves testing of silage. Not only did he go through the schemes and where we are at, but he gave us the bags to go home to test the silage and drop them into his office. They will be left into a lab for us. That is the service provided. If there is anything wrong in my agricultural portfolio, I can ring him. As for this thing of importing slurry, when a farmer gets a text message, it is lost. If you do not ring him there and then, all of a sudden it is forgotten about and the whole thing is upside down. There has to be a connection. There has to be interlinking. If the farmer gives permission for his data to be automatically shared with the person who is his adviser, it is a no-brainer. This, to me, is not adding up, Chair. Where are we going? How will this change? If the Department says no to this, water quality and everything else will not change for the farmers.