Mr. Paul Dillon:

Turning to the queries raised by Senator O'Neill, we accept the point about the concerns of the organisation expressed at the previous session. That is why we have gone through it in some detail to see if we are addressing those properly. We have met them quite regularly. They are also members of the organic focus group. As such, we have a good bit of contact with them. The biggest issue they expressed was the delay in payments and we have dealt with that.

I was asked about the cost of membership of the organic control bodies. We have looked across a number of other member states of the EU to see how they operate and there is a mix. Some countries operate the same system as we do and some operate it from the agencies themselves. Somebody mentioned Austria, which has eight private sector organic control bodies. That is not dissimilar to how we operate it ourselves. There is competition between the control bodies. That is the way they operate.

I was asked about the breakdown between the different sectors. Ms Joan Furlong will give the committee some of the breakdown.