Pat Deering (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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I would like to congratulate the two new presidents and wish them well in their terms of office. I look forward to working with them over that time.

We are all at one here on this issue. Everybody is probably waiting anxiously for the next section of this meeting. The point has been made that the goal posts have been changed regularly, but this is not a new phenomenon. This situation has arisen many times. We get two or three good years, but then we hit a bad year and then have two or three bad years and so on. We need a short-term solution now, but we need a long-term solution for the future. Farmers and producers need certainty from year to year, rather having to rely on what may happen. We need engagement on this.

This committee did significant work with the grocery area where legislation is overdue and needs to be moved on urgently. We did some very good work in that regard last year. I am aware it is not on our work schedule, but perhaps we should use the committee in the same way to do an in-depth investigation on the meat industry. There is scope for the committee to do this and I believe the appetite for that exists now. We should bring in all the stakeholders. Having listened to the presentations here today, I have been reinforced in my opinion that the large multiples have a significant role to play in this also.

I compliment all those who made presentations on their presentations, in particular the ICOS presentation which lays out the bare facts of the current position for everybody to see. A concern brought to my attention in the past week was raised in one of the presentations, namely, who has access to the AIM system within the factories. This is a serious issue. If somebody had access to some of our personal details, there would be uproar. This is something that needs to be investigated. I would support Deputy Ó Cuív's suggestion to bring in the data protection officer or whoever is in charge to the committee.

This is a serious matter. Who controls access and who should have access to the system? Is access restricted to a certain number of people? I believe it is restricted to a certain number of people and those people are the only ones who should have access to it, but I understand that almost everybody within the factory system has access to it and is able to manipulate the figures and know from day to day and week to week what is and should be coming in and can organise prices accordingly. This is a serious matter that should be investigated.

As I said earlier, the goal posts have been changed. The factories, Bord Bia and everybody else gave great encouragement to farmers to produce a certain type of beef, but now they have rowed back on that. Why has the position changed? I know there are more steer coming into the market. I see a big problem arising if we have a 50% increase in dairy production, starting next year. This is a concern. We are only a little over a year away from the abolition of quotas, which means we will see more Friesian type cattle coming into the market. This will cause a serious problem. Where are these cattle going to go? This brings me back to the point I made initially. We need a long-term solution to this problem. We must try to iron it out once and for all so as to introduce certainty.

The lack of competition is a serious issue. We have had one dominant player in the market place for many years and it seems to be getting more dominant as we move on. There also seems to be a connection developing between that dominant player and the large multiples. This requires a serious investigation. I do not have many questions, but I would like to know more about who should have access to the AIM system. What information do the witnesses have on that? Who has access to it and who should have the information?