Dr. Tom Kelly:

I will take up that last point Mr. Coughlan made. The average size of a sucker herd is 15 cows. We are looking at that population. One of the big advantages of HerdPlus and the triangular relationship between Teagasc, farmers and the ICBF is that, even if a farmer has very little understanding of what these indices, measures and reports mean, the Teagasc adviser who will advise the farmer has access to the information, with the farmer's permission. As I stated in my presentation, it is a major step forward for a national extension service such as ourselves to be able to add value to the existing information. The day has gone when advisers went out to preach practice to farmers. It is very much a case of pointing out to them that, benchmarked against other farmers, they are not doing too badly or they are doing quite badly and, to improve, they need to concentrate on two or three things. If one can put the farmer's own data in front of them, there is very little for them to deny.

Their own figures will show their true situation.