Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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Before I go back to the panel I wish to offer my tuppence worth. I will focus on two of the slides. We listened to the previous delegation, and while there are issues with board representation and so forth, the major contentious issue is the Euro-Star replacement index. The relative weightings there are maternal milk at 18%, fertility at 23%, docility at 4% and calving at 16%. I added them up and those four traits amount to 79% of the index. The bottom line states: "The ideal Irish beef cow; a weaned calf every year of good weight and quality". In my view, however, that 79% means the offspring coming from the dairy herd can score more heavily than the offspring from the beef herd. I go back to the €1,000+ weanlings that Deputy Fitzmaurice mentioned. There is a total of 11,180 weanlings from the dam stars. There are 1,449 from one-star dams and their average price is €2.76 per kilogram whereas for the five-star dams it is €2.67 per kilogram.

It means that when they are going through the mart, those from one-star dams are making more per kilo than those from five-star dams. That is a serious contradiction in terms and comes back to the point that was being made earlier by the previous delegation, that the index does not reflect what we need to produce from the suckler herd, which is U grade animals. The dams that qualify for the five-star rating are not producing the weanlings that make the most per kilo in the mart.

Ms Hunt referred to the quality of the animals coming through and a serious degradation in it. While I know there were other issues raised by the delegation today, the major issue is the replacement index and the way that is compiled, where the delegation feels that the continental animal is being discriminated against. That graph of weanlings that made more than €1,000 raises questions. It bears out many points that were made earlier. Some can say that the carcass weights are higher for the five-star dams. That comes back to the maternal milk. In 12 months, when they are hanging up on the line, what will be the weights and grades at that stage? Maybe it is impossible to do it but if the witnesses can get an E grade animal, that is where they want to go. Surely we have to try to reflect the end product, what grade it is, what carcass weight it achieves and what age it can be killed at in the replacement index. Other points were made, but for me, that is the hub of the argument where there is a clash between the breed societies and the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, ICBF.