Professor Gerry Boyle:

One has to ask what is the New Zealand model. One of its characteristics is scale. I have my own views on that. We can drive scale so far in this country but one runs into obstacles, as the farm in question did very quickly in the context of labour. We will never replicate the scale in New Zealand. The weather is different. It depends on whether one is on the North Island or the South Island. The weather on the North Island is more like that in Ireland.

The project laid out the business plan. We have learned that there was not really a dynamic element in it in terms of determining when there should be a pause to decide on making a new investment and so on. On a typical farm, that is exactly what happens. Every young farmer is short of cash and will take risks because he or she has to. If young farmers do not have the cash, they cannot borrow enough. They try to build up and when they have a surplus, they say it is time to put in place creature comforts for themselves and the animals. That is the way it typically evolves. The farm in question has got to the point where the pause button has been pressed. There will have to be investment as a consequence of what happened. That will be picked up by farmers. We have learned a great deal.

Deputy Cahill raised a few issues concerning the moratorium. I have to agree with him. We are delighted the moratorium has been lifted.

I have made no bones about my view that starting salaries for researchers and advisors in the organisation are a major problem which is only getting worse by the day. I acknowledge that we are no different from the rest of the public sector and that we will not be top of the queue for any adjustment in the near future, unlike other sectors with a higher profile. However, the starting salary for someone who has completed a PhD that takes four or sometimes five years, is €32,500, which is simply not competitive. Not only is it not competitive with the private sector, which we would not expect it to be, it is not competitive with the university sector. That is our main problem, as that is where we are competing. It is an issue and we have to go down the line sometimes to less qualified candidates. Sometimes people take up the position, stay a short while and go. Sometimes we have had to go through several interviews to get people. It is an issue and I cannot see a quick solution to it. It is bound up with the national public finances. I have an economics background and can understand the wider macroeconomic issues, but we have serious concerns.

There is no doubt that discussion groups have worked in the dairy sector. They have been less successful in beef, but with the knowledge transfer scheme, beef farmers have come into the system and we are reasonably confident that a number of them will stay on when the scheme ends next year. The message that we are trying to get across to them is that the concession farmers received for joining the scheme pales into insignificance in comparison with the benefits to profitability and incomes.

I do not have the detailed figures on student enrolments, but I will supply them to the committee. In general, however, there has been a levelling off over the past few years in college attendance. In fact, it has dropped back a little. It is not uniform across the country. For example, Ballyhaise has maintained numbers for some reason and bucked the trend a little. However, college enrolments have been more than offset by the part-timers. Someone mentioned the distance education students. There are great incentives by way of grant aid and there was access to the national quota reserve for a period for those about to inherit farms. Such people have to get a qualification, which is why there was a major influx of people with other qualifications, including accountants, solicitors and an array of others who were eligible for the distance programme. That is why they came in. Equally, there has been a significant increase in the number of people with farming backgrounds who did not have prior qualifications and so must go the part-time route at our regional centres. In particular, we have approximately 2,000 people on a waiting list in the north and north east. We hope to work down through that demand but it is difficult to do so with the limited resources we have.

I will talk to Deputy Cahill again at some stage about our work on climate change. It has been front and centre in the national response. I will follow up on the point about stamp duty. I was not aware of that issue.