Mr. Eddie Downey:

Senator O'Neill was very clear when he said he has a problem with getting rid of steer beef. That is a sad statement when one thinks about it. It is unbelievable that we have a problem of getting rid of quality Irish beef, the best in the world. I accept the factories have high numbers of animals coming at them while we are asking them to take the cattle. That gives them power, however. As we know, absolute power corrupts.

There is corruption in the system. The processors and the retailers are in collusion. Everyone knows this. They will talk about fair trade and the manner in which they have to do it. The problem is that the high numbers of cattle have left the factories with power to put pressure on farmers over prices. However, it has left the retailer with more power against the factories. This is where the pressure is coming from and it is a weakness in the system. Unless legislation is introduced to protect all the players in the system, we are going nowhere. That includes the producer, the processor, the distributor, the retailer and the customer. The chains in the link need to be of equal power.

The Competition Authority was asked to look into the beef industry. It did but found nothing wrong and the fact the price is exactly the same from all the factories around the country is a pure coincidence. No one believes that. We need to examine this issue again.

The goalposts are constantly changing when animals are in the system. That puts farmers in the most vulnerable position possible. It is a high-cost system as every day a lot of money is spent on feed for animals. On current prices, every day an animal is on a farm, it is losing money. If it is during the summer, during the grass period, there is a different dynamic.

As for the question as to how much beef is coming in from Poland, that is a question for Meat Industry Ireland.