Mr. Cormac Cunningham:

In the South there is certainly an element of summertime production outweighing production in the winter; the ration is as high as 40:1 on certain farms. In our case, by comparison, it is fairly flat, the average ratio being probably 1.3:1 or something like that. In short, we are producing milk in the winter. Taking the island as a whole, it might be the case that farmers in the South see that the fellows in the North have decided to invest in the plant and machinery that are required to produce milk in the wintertime as well as the summertime and decided to let them tear away at it while they concentrate on specialising in other areas, such as maximising the output of grass for grazing in the summertime.

My argument is that if quotas go then milk production will rise, in which case the difficulty we will have is not a shortage of milk but how to get it processed in the summertime. What I foresee is that processors will put in incentives to encourage more milk to be produced in the shoulders of the year, because that will ensure the best utilisation of their plants. As a businessman, Deputy Barry will understood that. There will be incentives to produce milk in the shoulders of the year, which will get over - if it ever did become an issue - any shortage milk in the wintertime. We supply the same amount of milk, summer and winter, 12 months of the year. We are obliged to ensure the supplies are there. I have never seen a situation where there was a scarcity of milk for us to buy, anywhere on the island, in January or February.