Mr. Con Hurley:

It is easy to talk about figures and all the speakers are correct in that there is a big difference in efficiencies between the top and bottom producers, but as Warren Buffett said, it is only when the tide goes out that one discovers who has been swimming naked. That is what happened to farmers in Victoria in Australia during the past 15 years. They had high costs. They went down that route. In other words, they went in the opposite direction. They had a system of low grass-grazing and high costs. The social carnage that has occurred there during the past decade has been horrific in terms of physical illness, mental illness, marital break-ups and suicides. I do not want to forecast that happening here, but Northern Ireland is on the verge. With the current drop in prices, the Northern Ireland producers are getting, on average, 30 cent to 35 cent per litre. Milk prices are going to drop to 25 cent to 27 cent. There will be serious problems there in the next 15 to 20 months. When we are talking about figures loosely like this, we must remember that we are talking about people, farm families, children on farms, marriages and social cohesion. If anything, that is one of the main reasons farm families should be keeping their costs down.