Dr. Muiris Ó Céidigh:

There are two aspects to that. While we would love to have additional powers to deal with the situation, there are two sides to the discussion. First, one is sitting in an EU environment in which one cannot price fix. The National Milk Agency does its business by looking at whether supply will be maintained. One of the items in the working guidelines is the question of whether a system is working. If it is, we accept it. Second, there is a history behind the co-operative and processor business in Ireland and they closely guard the relationships with producer panels. Their entitlement is to design their own mechanisms for compensation. By and large, those systems are working.

What we are faced with now is a landscape in which fast responses are required. As raised at the NDC conference last week, the industry must consider some immediate response mechanism or a mechanism for removing immediate risk from the system. The producers along with the processors carry a great deal of risk. The rotten thing about the job of a producer is the level of risk he or she faces. That is the difficulty. How one resolves it in terms of framing a power is not something I can give direct answers on here. It is a difficulty and what the committee is saying is true. The processors have their views on the matter also.