Mr. Cormac Cunningham:

It is a great honour to be here in front of the committee to present our case. I will give some background. Mr. Ruairí Cunningham and I are brothers and members of the Cunningham family which has been in the milk business on the island of Ireland for 150 years.

As members can see from our presentation, we are Ireland's oldest family dairy. Wherever one is in Ireland, one will find Strathroy fresh milk and dairy products. We supply milk and dairy products sourced directly from Irish farms. Our distribution network covers every county in Ireland. Being deeply involved in the dairy industry, the issue we wish to raise is an urgent one. If it not addressed, it will be bad for consumers, farmers and employment in Ireland. In our presentation today, we outline the potential impacts of this issue and some potential solutions we would respectfully suggest to the committee.

It may seem a bit obvious for the committee but we feel we need to say that we are an Irish business. We source Irish milk directly from Irish farms and contribute to strong prices for Irish farmers because we actively compete for their milk. We provide over 250 jobs throughout the island of Ireland and milk and dairy products of the highest quality to Irish consumers. The "Guaranteed Irish" mark is one of the oldest and most recognisable origin labelling campaigns in Ireland and one of the most trusted symbols for Irish manufactured goods and services. We carry this symbol.

I will move on to the National Dairy Council, NDC, and its mark. Despite everything I have just said, we do not qualify for the NDC's packaging mark "Farmed in the Republic of Ireland" simply because the milk we buy is processed in Omagh.