Pat O'Neill (Fine Gael)
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The follow-up question for Mr. Barry relates to the 40% increase in beef production. Let us take the figure of 200,000 extra cows. Unless we go into genetics and all the calves are one sex, there will be 100,000 extra dairy male animals. How will that fit into the production of beef and the 40% increase in production? I have a fear about quotas disappearing in this country. Mr. Barry expressed it with regard to the suckler herd, that we will see a major decrease in that herd. Land is a finite resource. If it is lucrative to go into milk production, although nobody can predict what the world market will be, will we see a drive to stock every piece of land that comes on the market with black and white breeds, to the detriment of the suckler herd? I mean no disrespect to Holstein or black and white breeds. There could be an extra 100,000 male dairy-type animals coming into the beef herd. How will we achieve our targets for 2020 if that happens?