Mr. Patrick Kent:

On efficiency, I have information from a dairy farmer who has 150 Holstein cows. He uses a beef bull to finish. To feed his approximately 30 Holstein bulls compared with the 30 beef crossbreeds, he needs twice the feed but they put on the same weight and the kill-out rate of the Holsteins is lower. Those animals are approximately 30% as efficient as the half-bred beef animal. While the animals for export might be efficient for the first weeks for veal production, for beef production they are a waste product and are not viable to feed. Some disastrous financial results have been experienced by people losing €500 a head after feeding them. I make no apologies, therefore, for Mr. Graham's statement. We are certainly not pitting farmer against farmer. We are speaking about the dairy industry, which is profiteering with more than 20 people who never milk a cow earning more than €1 million every year and managing the large co-operatives and so on. It is a greed-driven business and it works farmers too hard. Dairy farmers work far too hard for what they get, and they produce too much for too little. They have been exploited more than any other sector.

Beef farmers will not last because they are on such a low threshold of income that they will go out of business unless the CAP is reformed in their favour. It particularly extends to farmers in Ireland, small to medium operations and family units. They will not survive in rural Ireland. Shops and other ancillary industries in small towns in rural Ireland will be wiped out because the farmers will have no spending power. In reform of the CAP, therefore, it is imperative we focus the budget on keeping these people in production because they produce a very high-quality product. Feed conversion efficiency is significant. The pig industry monitors the tons of feed in and the tons of pigs out. It is purely about efficiency and is what makes the process carbon efficient. It is the same in the case of pure dairy-cross animals, such as Kiwis and so on. They are a disaster to feed and I cannot emphasise that enough. I have heard horrendous stories of farmers losing money hand over fist. Young people, in particular, need to cognisant of that because they do not have as much experience. When older farmers see sharp animals, they know the animals will eat a lot of feed to put on very little edible beef, and they will not be caught so easily. Young people, however, are vulnerable because they can obtain money more easily from banks and can find themselves in a situation of unsustainable, insurmountable debt, working for large corporations. I would put question marks over the Kepak tie-in with Glanbia because it could get people into a debt they cannot overcome.

People are in a threshold of trying to work really hard. It is the newest form of slavery - debt slavery. It applies to the dairy industry more than any other industry but it also applies to young people getting into the fattening of dairy bulls. They need to do all their sums and get all of the information possible before they even think of going down that route. They need to talk to some older farmers who have a bit of knowledge in this. They will definitely not get that information from the advisory services, which are focused on working the farmers harder and harder for less and less. That is what farmers have been doing for the past 20 years. They have been working away, and not just on their own labour. They have also been working away their own resources. Their resources are depleting and they are getting bigger into debt with co-operatives and banks. They produce more for large corporations that are investing in hospitals, healthcare facilities and bank buildings in Dublin, other than in the beef farmer's pocket. The beef farmer is the last person to be paid and he or she is paid the least.

I make no apology for standing up for beef farmers in this situation. I add sheep farmers to this. Sheep farming is a vulnerable sector. Farmers should be getting €6 per kilo for their lamb but they are not. Sheep farmers produce probably one of the best meats one can get. I referred earlier to marketing and all of the different Government bodies, staff of which are on large salaries. I believe this to be questionable. Some of the funding goes on pensions, which I believe is 60%. The situation has come to the stage where we are going to have to think about winding up some of these large-----