Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein)
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As the witnesses are not exactly hostile, it will be okay on this occasion. I want to concentrate my questions on the call for the margins of all players along the food chain to be subject to audit and full transparency. The ICSA believes that Ireland should push for the involvement of an EU level auditor. We spoke last week about transparency and data, specifically who holds data, how they could be used and why that use is being prevented. Can we not carry out an audit as a member state? If the data from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine are made available to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, could the latter carry out a proper examination? What do the witnesses think it would find in such an investigation? I will ask the same question that I asked the organisations last week. Do the witnesses have reason to believe that a cartel is in operation among the processors?

We will be meeting the processors in a later session. In the absence of a proper audit of the raw data and in light of the reluctance to put the data on the table, we can only assume that practices are being covered up. I look forward to greater transparency in regard to that data because, once received, we will be able to examine some of the other measures mentioned, which are important. Until such time as there is transparency, we cannot determine where the money is being spent and so on. The beef sector is worth €2.6 billion. That money is ending up in somebody's pocket and that is certainly not the farmers of rural Ireland, in particular of Mayo. I would welcome the witnesses' views on the matter.

As other members will pose questions on other issues, I will concentrate on this issue. I am glad Macra na Feirme is represented here today. In the absence of Government intervention or action, would it advise young people to take up farming? I refer to the Macra na Feirme opening statement in which it was mentioned there has been a huge reduction in the number of suckler cows. As I understand it, 40,537 cows were lost over the last couple of years. Has Macra na Feirme guesstimated how many cows we might have five years down the line?