Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the officials for their presentation. I hope they will not take anything I say in the next few minutes personally, but it is an understatement to say I am cross following what I heard. I am a dairy and beef farmer and the lack of realisation about the current crisis in the beef industry is frightening. Ms McPhillips said that our food is exported to 180 countries worldwide and that 96% of beef is sold within the EU while the other 4% goes outside in the form of offal. It is bunkum to say we have all these great markets for beef. We are not selling it. We have not moved one iota in the past ten years as regards developing markets. Let us state facts rather than try to hoodwink people. The reality is that 96% of beef is sold within the EU and what is sold outside of it, to China and elsewhere, is sold as offal. Only a wheelbarrow of beef went to the United States. We also heard that: "The Department is deeply committed to fully supporting and developing Ireland's beef sector." Our sector is on its knees. I have never seen such despondency among beef farmers. There is no mention of the profitability of fattening cattle or producing beef in Food Wise 2025 other than to the reference to low profitability in the sector. The reality at the moment is that farmers are losing money hand over fist.

A conservative estimate is that cattle would want to make €4.60 per kg to break even due to cost of feed for cattle at the moment. Steers are going on the grid at €3.75 per kg. God help whoever has Friesian steers to kill because one will only get, maybe turnabout, €3.40 per kg. Cattle are losing a fortune and beef farmers are losing a fortune.

The opening statement reads: "Minister Creed has also made considerable efforts towards facilitating and developing the live export trade, including leading a trade delegation to Turkey last year. The live trade will again be a focus of efforts in 2019." There are no cattle over 12 months of age being exported at the moment. We have no market for live exports. We have a situation where we knew that the dairy herd was going to expand rapidly and we did not put the infrastructure in place to get Friesian calves out of the country in greater numbers. We exported 160,000 calves last year, Bord Bia received a levy of around €300,000 when it exported those calves and we have not got adequate lairage facilities on the Continent to take calves this spring. Our dairy herd is expanding at a fairly significant rate and we will be lucky to hit exports of 160,000 calves this year. In my opinion, instead of efforts focusing on live exports we have gone the other way.

Food Wise 2025 and market development were mentioned in the statement. I have outlined the figures that clearly show that market development has not happened. The last line in the first paragraph on Food Wise 2025 reads: "I should stress that these projections did not include volume growth targets". Why not? We knew that there would be more cattle in the country so surely there should have been volume growth targets in place. We knew the dairy herd was going to expand at a very significant rate. The other side of the report stated we were going to increase milk production by 50% by 2020 so we knew there would be a serious increase in cattle numbers in the country but no volume growth targets were put in place. To me, that is just ignoring the inevitable. Unfortunately, the inevitable has arrived and for the past three to four months there has been a kill of 40,000 cattle per week, which we are just not able to sell at a viable price. That is the reality of Food Wise 2025 and, unfortunately, that reality is not being faced up to.

I have underlined the parts of the presentation that annoyed me the most. Sexed semen was mentioned. Yes, sexed semen would play a huge part but have we done anything to develop it? Has money been invested in developing sexed semen? Has sexed semen become economically viable? Has the fertility of sexed semen improved? No, it has not and no resources have been put into the sector.

Again, there are weaknesses such as low probability. Beef farmers would be delighted if they were able to discuss probability. The real discussion is on how much is being lost at the moment.

All through the document there was no mention of the person who is finishing those cattle. In reality, the man who buys store cattle coming from the dairy herd or the weanling being chosen by the suckler, is unable to give a viable price for them if he has not got a margin for feeding those cattle. That is the major problem that faces us with young cattle this spring when cattle start to come out of the sheds to be sold. Is the man who has finished the cattle going to have any firepower to buy the store cattle? That is without discussing the complications of Brexit and the huge damage that Brexit can do to our main market, which is the UK.

In terms of loans and low-cost loans, farmers have waited two years for what was announced in 2017 to be put on the table. The initiative has repeatedly been postponed. If a beef man approached a bank for a loan he would not be entertained because, unfortunately, in order to get money from a financial institution one must have the financial capacity to pay it back and no beef man has that capacity at the moment.

In terms of the statement, there is "€500 per cow on average across all schemes", if one said that to a group of beef farmers in a room one would want to be sitting very near the door because in reality that suckler cow is costing that farmer money. I accept that, bar the knowledge transfer scheme, he can avail of schemes such as GLAS, ANC, etc., and have donkeys on his holding. However, he does not have the suckler cows to avail of any of those schemes. To insert the figure of "€500" in the statement is at best highly irritating to suckler farmers, and I could use a far stronger term. It is demeaning.

It is four years since quotas were abolished so it is late in the day to be thinking about the need to work on the issue of beef from the dairy herd. We have the serious issue of cross-breds being produced in the dairy herd. As I said earlier in terms of sexed semen, we could produce Aberdeen Angus and heifer cattle from the dairy herd that would go into the heifer prime and the Aberdeen Angus schemes, that have been promoted fairly extensively, but no work has been done whatsoever on this matter.

The next CAP reform was mentioned. At the moment beef farmers are eating into their CAP payments to keep bread on the table. It is going to be a huge Everest to climb to maintain the existing CAP budget. We have the black hole that will be generated by the exit of the UK from the EU and it is going to be hugely difficult to maintain the CAP budget.

Immigration and defence are becoming major issues with other EU member states and the importance of CAP has diminished among a lot of our fellow EU members. Unfortunately, the reliance of farmers on their CAP payments will increase but the same budget will not exist.

My comments are not a personal criticism of the assistant Secretary General because we are discussing a document produced by the Department. If that is how the Department responds to the challenges that are being faced by the beef industry then it is an insult. There is no realisation of the huge crisis that is in beef farming. If we wait around like Nero watching Rome burn then we will not have a beef industry in 12 months time. We have failed to get Friesian calves out of the country this spring in the numbers that are needed. There is now talk about getting facilities in Cherbourg. We are in the middle of the calving season so we are not getting calves out in the numbers needed and, unfortunately, the 40,000 kill that we had for the last three to four months will be maintained. There are men who have Friesian bulls coming to 24 months of age and they are begging processors to take them off them. They are not asking the price just "Will you kill them for me?" because once the bulls go over 24 months of age their value is dramatically reduced. A neighbour of mine had very good cows to sell the other day and he was told they would be taken off him in three weeks' time. The crisis that our industry is experiencing cannot be overestimated. To me, this response by the Department is poor in the extreme.