Mr. Michael Keane:

There is no doubt that the Kerrygold brand commands a premium, particularly in the German market.

The Irish Dairy Board would contend that the totality of the returns from the market drives the profit both to the Irish Dairy Board and to the suppliers and processors. When the market reaches rock bottom, whether it was 2006, 2009 or 2012, the price to the primary producer while it is very weak never falls to the full extent of the commodity price that is quoted on the world stage. One would have to deduce from this that an element of the premium definitely gets transferred down the line. Farming organisations and others would contend that is not a big enough share and I would not necessarily disagree with that. It is not an easy task to get transparency on it.

On Deputy Pringle's question on whether efficiencies can be gained and measured, they can. At farm level, there is huge divergence in terms of the top 10%. To take the top and bottom figures in any scale is an extreme, but to take the top quartile and the bottom quartile, there could be variances in production costs of 8 cent to 10 cent. That is a big earn, there is a huge value addition to be gained on farms if we can educate farmers and have a sufficient knowledge transfer to execute that. In other words, if we can bring the bottom quartile anywhere near the level that the top quartile is performing, there would be a huge economic benefit not only for those farms but for the communities in which they are located.