Mr. Ray Doyle:

I will defer to the expertise of Mr. Scallan on that. As far as I am aware, it is an issue of time rather than distance. The problem is that they have to reach the greater Cherbourg area, so if it was extended 20 km or 30 km farther south, that may be it, since a person would be caught for time. The problem with the time is that it is administered by the French authorities. They administer penalties to our transporters. For want of a better phrase, the French authorities will not allow us to sneak past, not that we want to. The transport times are best practice.

The Deputy asked about other exports and Bord Bia issues. Bord Bia is our national authority for marketing our beef and lamb, both dead and alive. This dovetails into a question that Deputy Cahill raised. There is an adage at mart manager and dealer levels that one needs a good live trade to keep the dead trade alive. Even though the numbers are quite small, at 200,000 animals out of 1.7 million slaughtered, that is still 9% to 10% of the total. That is enough to keep the trade honest and to keep another bidder for animals. We need to expand on that. The north African markets are really the only markets for those older, larger one to two year old bulls or bullocks. In 1994, we exported 250,000 live Friesian bullocks from Ireland. That is one category alone, ignoring the weanlings and the calves going to the veal units. I think the total figure for that year was in excess of 400,000. That was a fantastic source of competition and I am sure that Deputy Cahill remembers selling animals that ultimately ended up on that boat. It was great to have that extra source of competition and to remove that poorer quality, for want of a better phrase. It is probably a poor phrase because the north Africans do not have a problem with that animal and it is quite reasonable in their eyes.