Mr. Joe Healy:

I refer to one or two points made earlier. There was a question from Deputy McConalogue on unfair trading practices, UTPs, and whether there is potential in that regard. There is potential in that regard. It is seen as a first step. It is definitely the first time the EU Commission has got involved. I believe that has been driven by Commissioner Hogan. The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CCPC, has been mentioned a few times. We have no faith in the CCPC, which we said in its presence in a room somewhere in this House, because it stated clearly that when it came to the UTPs and the legislation, it was only interested in the consumer and not in the producer. However, we had no faith in it even before that. We want an independent regulator to ensure the findings of the report are carried through because the producer has to have faith in the process from the start.

There was a lot of mention of jersey cows. Sometimes the media exaggerates the issue of the jersey cow. It is an issue but probably less than 7% of the dairy herd is jersey or jersey cross, which is fewer than 100,000 cows. If AI or a bull is put across those, approximately 70 of them might go back in calf to a dairy type bull. In the cleaning up, the rest of them will go to an Angus or a Hereford . We are talking about approximately 30,000 to 40,000 bull calves out of a total dairy herd of 1.4 million cows. The jersey issue probably gets more air time than it deserves. The real issue is to have live exports.

Deputy Eamon Ryan and I have often spoken about this issue. In fairness, whether it is the Deputy, Pippa Hackett or Senator Grace O'Sullivan, the conversations are always constructive and we agree to disagree but we always take the motives in the spirit in which they are meant. Our live exports are done to the very top standard. I know of humans who would love to have the facilities to sleep in at night that those calves or any cattle that we export have to travel in those lorries. No matter what sector of life one goes into, whether it is farming or any other sector, if 40 hours of footage is taken one can very easily get 20 or 30 seconds that might not look up to scratch.

I take what the Deputy is saying about the consumer because we need the consumer to be positive towards agriculture, and I believe they have every reason to be positive. In fairness to Commissioner Hogan and the EU Commission, when they were doing the consultancy report with the ordinary consumer, there was a huge positive towards the workings of the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, and its objective, which is to produce top quality food at affordable prices. It does that.

I agree with the Deputy, as did Deputy Cahill, that the industry needs to change. We talk about biodiversity and renewables and what needs to be done in that regard. We have already called on the Taoiseach to lead a whole-of-Government approach to the area of renewables. We all know that farmers have had two false dawns with the willow and the miscanthus. They cannot afford another false dawn. If we go down that road we will lose their interest forever. We need the Government to come in at a political level. All we can do on this side of the table is lobby. There has to be a proper feed-in tariff and proper access to the grid. I accept there has to be bureaucracy in terms of planning but that must be kept to a minimum.

On the lairage, Deputy Penrose left after he asked the questions. Before Deputy Ryan leaves, I will refer to the increase in emissions. It is very important to say that what he is talking about is not comparing apples with apples. I refer to the people who say we may not be as sufficient as we are say we are in that regard. We based that on science. The European Joint Research Centre committee has highlighted that when dairy production - not any other type of production - anywhere in Europe is compared with dairy production in Ireland, we are the most carbon efficient producers of dairy product in Europe, and we are in the top five in beef.