Mr. Eamonn McEnteggart:

On the issue of Northern Ireland milk, Mr. Murphy addressed the fact that it has grown by 50% in the past ten years. That milk has no home. The milk business in Northern Ireland has not had sufficient funds to build processing capacity on its own soil and has left it on our doorstep. That is a sad reflection on the significant growth in milk production in Northern Ireland.

Deputy Ó Cuív asked a simple question about whether we can cover the rising costs. Deputy McNamara also mentioned it. As a producer, I will tell the committee that over the past 12 months, every liquid milk producer in the country has lost money. It is a simple fact.

Deputy Ó Cuív asked whether there is adequate compensation and he implied that the National Milk Agency has not done its business on a budget of €600,000 to €700,000. That €600,000 to €700,000 is farmers' money that is deducted from their milk cheques every month, and one will travel the European Union and the world to find an agency that has done as good a job in the liquid milk sector as the National Milk Agency. One will not find a liquid milk sector elsewhere in Europe such as there is on this soil. We should be very proud of it and we need to nurture it.

Deputy Ó Cuív asked whether we will run short of milk in the winter months. We may not run short of milk as we know it, but most definitely we will run short of quality fresh milk that is the ideal product to put into the consumer's bottle. That point is often lost in the public media.

We were asked about the cost of the code of conduct. I addressed it earlier. As the producer representative on the National Milk Agency, I will state there is not a liquid milk producer who would not willingly help if he or she thought the only person making money in the business in the current scenario, that is, the multiple, would take part of the burden.

There have been a few sad histories of indigenous businesses on Irish soil. There was a lovely sugar industry. We did not nurture it, we lost it and now we would like it back. There was the beefburger scandal where the frozen beefburger came under undue and unnecessary pressure from the system. We are all aware of the end result, but it was the system that put the pressure on and left it as it was. There was a more exemplary case quite recently in the clothing sector where the primary manufacturers of many of our clothes suffered a loss of life because the pressure the system put on the primary manufacturer was untenable and unsustainable. It should not be allowed happen.

I am a liquid dairy farmer and I am proud to be one. I am here today to ask public representatives for help for the indigenous industry of which we are proud. A little knowledge is dangerous. Public representatives need to be properly informed. I told the committee what happened in Northern Ireland. We look across the water to the United Kingdom and what has happened to the domestic industry there. The committee should get familiar with the situation. We need to nurture the domestic milk industry.