Mr. Gerry Loftus:

I want to comment on carbon sequestration on the permanent grassland. The idea that it is not being taken into account is that it counteracts all land that is heavily fertilised. One has to counteract that with something; that is not in the statistics we are being told today.

Let us face facts when it comes to cows. One does not need 800 cows to live. Let us get real. We are pushing out one of the most valuable enterprises this country has ever had, that made the name of Irish agriculture, and that is the suckler cow. To come up with figures for the base year on which to make comparisons, the reality is that the suckler cow herd has dropped by about 250,000 cows in the past two and a half years, to make place for dairy cows. That is not acceptable to the farmers throughout rural Ireland who have reared families and want to continue to see the family, sons and daughters take over the small family farms. That is why we cannot buy into this nonsense that we should all pack up and sit down and do nothing and let the dairy sector take over the country.

The idea that we are promoting the beef genomic scheme is another farce. We are producing the most rubbish cattle at present because of the scheme that is going through our livestock marts. If we talk to any shipper who wants to transport animals, they cannot get suitable cattle to put on a ship because of the idea we have come up with which is to produce a smaller type poor quality cattle.

As I said at the outset, we have to get away from the business-led industrial model of farming we have in this country and the fact that 18,000 or 20,000 farmers think they can run the show and forget about the rest of us. That is not going to happen.