Michelle Mulherin (Fine Gael)
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Mr. Doyle said there was a glut of 68 weeks and that there was a real problem in this regard. He said it was more in our interest to expand capacity than it was in the interest of a private business person in France. Is there not already a capacity issue there? We do not have the capacity to ramp up live exports but we would need to do a lot more than now to address the problems with the number of calves we have to deal with.

As such, there is, in effect, a capacity issue regarding our ability to grow exports in the way we need. Is that a fair assessment? Some of this may have been answered. Mr. Scallan places a great deal of emphasis on the fact that there are customers and ships and the problem is the lairage facilities. Is Mr. Scallan saying there is demand in our markets which we are not meeting? What countries or markets is that happening in? How much are we missing out on? Can Mr. Scallan or Mr. Doyle quantify the loss? We want to export more live animals but are we missing opportunities right now because of the constraints described? Mr. Scallan is an exporter. At what point is he finished with the job of exporting? He brings the animals to the lairage; does he bring them onwards or does someone pick them up? How does it work in general? Mr. Scallan has contracts with people. Are they flexible contracts? If he had 4,000 calves a day and the entire exclusive use of a ship and the lairage, could he meet the demand? Does it work like that? The main emphasis today has been on expanding the lairage as a solution. Are there other elements to a solution? I want to be clear as we go forward on what we need to do to increase actual live exports and our capacity to export.