Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Professor Matthews for his thought-provoking analysis. From listening to him, I definitely would not like to be a farmer in Northern Ireland or the UK facing the consequences of this British decision. Professor Matthews mentioned Northern Ireland farmers and their dependence on direct payments in particular. If I was a farmer in Northern Ireland, I would be extremely worried about how that will happen in a post-Brexit scenario.

There is analysis needed of how the UK agricultural industry will survive, particularly if a cheap food policy is pursued. The UK's beef industry has been promoted fairly intensively over the last couple of years. There were campaigns for Scottish beef and for buying British. If the UK allows imports in from South America on a tariff-free basis, how will its own industry survive the onslaught? The other question is about the co-dependency and the processing capacity. How will that work out in a tariff environment? In the dairy industry, Northern Ireland is massively dependent on southern processing facilities. Approximately 3 million litres of milk are transported across the Border each day. We are seriously dependent on Northern Ireland's capacity in the pig industry. A significant number of pigs are transported across the Border to be slaughtered. With a tariff situation or a strict Border, how will the practicalities in this regard work?

The professor mentioned lamb exports. How can the UK have its cake and eat it? If it wants access to the French market, how can it deny us access to its own market? If the UK wants to export lamb, there will have to be a lot of serious talking done. I would fear that lamb exports will be sacrificed for the idea of cheap food in the UK market. I would like to hear the view of Professor Matthews on that.

The sector that is most exposed is our beef sector. A total of 50% of our beef is exported to the UK market. I would not have many concerns for dairy because the worldwide price for dairy is fairly similar. Whether a litre of milk is produced in New Zealand, the United States or in Europe, there is not a huge dissimilarity in price. I do not see huge difficulties on that side of it. However, there is a significant worldwide difference in the price of beef. If we look back ten or 15 years, we exported a huge amount of our beef outside of the EU. There was a policy decision taken that the EU was the best market on which to focus. That decision was taken by Bord Bia and I sat on that board at the time. The prime intention was to sell all of our beef within EU borders. In a way, that is coming back to haunt us now in that we left markets to which we will now have to return in order to sell beef.

What kind of a timescale does the Professor Matthews foresee in order to reduce that 50% dependency down to single digits? Is it possible to re-establish the markets we left ten or 15 years ago on an economic basis? Can we economically export into those markets again at our cost of production? If the answer to that is no, then we have serious problems in our beef sector. I am not questioning the decision that was taken in good faith to leave those markets, but now 50% of our market could be pulled out from under us. Does the witness see a timescale, or is it economically possible?