Mr. John O'Sullivan:

With the introduction in 1996 of the compulsory one tag one animal identification system, that is, the plastic tags which it is compulsory to attach to each animal at birth, a number of people in the agriculture industry saw an opportunity. It was the view that one tag would be for the animal's lifetime and that we could associate every activity relating to said animal to its tag. It was also the view that all information on the animal could be put on a database. However, there was no such database. A number of farmers and people from farming organisations came together and took a decision to establish a body to deal with this matter. They agreed to put an interim board in place and the group advertised for a chief executive. Mr. Coughlan's predecessor, Dr. Brian Wickham, who had been involved in creating the database in New Zealand, was recruited to set about establishing the ICBF. It was through Dr. Wickham's work that shareholdings, who should be involved and so on, were decided upon. Mr. Coughlan will comment on the nature of the shareholding.