Mr. Philip Carroll:

The Chairman's comments summarised some of the big strategic issues. I can say something about those in a few minutes. We have already spoken in different interventions about the four movements, the 30 months and the 70 days. That is what the market is looking for. It is not the case that we are not supplying the market to the specification required. Somebody said earlier, on another subject, that we need to follow what the market is looking for and deliver it. That is what we have to do. We are a cog. We are supplying markets which others are also supplying. These other suppliers are required to do exactly the same as us in terms of meeting market specifications. The answer to the question is that if one does not do that, one's returns will be even worse than they are now.

I will return to the point Deputy Scanlon made. Perhaps I was remiss in not making it earlier. We get it. We understand and hear the heat exploding around the room about returns in the market. We are not immune to that. We have engaged with all of the farm organisations directly on a number of occasions recently. We met representatives of the Beef Plan Movement in recent weeks. We had a discussion on all of the issues we are discussing here. We completely understand the frustration of farmers. Why would we not understand it? We have people working in meat factories and people in this room who have roles at a primary level as well as roles representing the industry view on these matters.

I mentioned that we were at 112% of the EU market price in March and April of this year. That is a reflection of what industry does when returns in the market are strong. The price is now back at slightly below 100% of the EU market price. We are operating in a different environment, one in which the market returns are far poorer than they were in the earlier part of the year. We have never seen the kind of existential crisis presented by Brexit. At the very least, there has been no precedent for it since the connection between BSE and CJD was made in the UK. We were locked out of many markets at that time but we returned from it. All we can do is hope that these returns will come back.

I do not accept that the problem is that processors are treating farmers unfairly. I am saying that they are dealing with the problems we discussed earlier. There is a particular problem in the European market and problems arising from Brexit. When we got close to the point at which Brexit was to be delivered, the market contracted even further. The level of investment and the commitment to purchase were not there. That does not make anybody here feel comfortable. It is not a comfortable place to be sitting when the market is in decline. However, we never sit here when the market is at its height. We never discuss the market when it is performing well. We never meet farm organisations when the market is doing well. It is understandable that we meet them when things are bad. We have to account for that. We try to do that in as reasonable a way as we possibly can.

I will take a few of the questions. I will not labour any of them. Deputy Corcoran Kennedy asked about the Food Wise 2025 targets and whether we felt they were achievable. Food Wise overlaps with the previous and subsequent programmes. This particular programme sought an increase to €19.6 billion in the annual value of exports. From my recollection, the baseline from which to grow was in the order of €9 billion. As of 2018, we are at €13.6 billion. The trajectory looks fairly okay. The one uncertainty we see in the meat sector is whether we can deliver in the context of Brexit and how it will develop. That is critical to us.