Mr. Tim Cullinan:

I will take the Chairman's question first. I was going to bring it up anyway. The Chairman is right. We must look at alternatives. The ferry is important as well. We want to ensure this continues but we are looking at alternatives because if we look at what is happening with calves, we can see there is a limited market for calves for the Netherlands because of all that is happening in the food services sector. As there is a limited market for veal, we must look further afield. Teagasc is carrying out a trial involving flying a plane with 900 calves to Ostend in Belgium. At least if the calves can get there, it would be easy enough to distribute them right across Europe. Flying is more expensive at almost double the cost but we could get into newer markets. There is a demand in Spain, particularly for Friesian bull calves, but even for the Jersey cross calves. There is a market in Spain for calves that might be 12 to 15 weeks old. We might need to look at countries outside the EU to find new markets. Again, this is a job that our food marketing body, Bord Bia, needs to be doing at the moment. We have made representation to it on that point already. The Chairman is 100% right. We must look at where we are. We have approximately 1.5 million dairy cows and 800,000 suckler cows. If we are to keep those calves at home, we will have a consistent kill of well in excess of 40,000 per week. As we all know what happens if more than 40,000 cattle are killed per week, the answer to the Chairman's question is we are working on that. We want to see calves flying out this country. Teagasc is doing trial work on that.

In response to Deputy Fitzmaurice, it is very important that whatever must be done to facilitate calves going through Rosslare, also be done, be it lairage or something else. I think it probably would be more important to know there is enough lairage at the other side when they get there, because there needs to be a resting period. I get the Deputy's point. If trucks go down to Rosslare and cannot get on a ferry, that will prove difficult. As we are already seeing problems with trucks moving in France, that is also a concern. Perhaps we do need a facility there to deal with that.

Going back to Brussels and what support I was getting for a ban on beef coming into Europe, that was part of our submission early on. We are putting approximately 240,000 or 250,000 tonnes of beef per year into the UK. In the event of no deal, if the UK decides to do a deal with South America, that will be another 240,000 tonnes coming in. Our clear position on that is the current Mercosur deal should be suspended. Europe cannot take another 40,000 tonnes coming in. In the event of no deal, I will ask the European Commission to immediately suspend all beef coming into Europe. I am getting support for this in Europe.

Regarding the buying of cattle in the South to go North, again, we are having serious negotiations with our counterpart in Northern Ireland. It wants that trade to continue after Brexit. What farmers in Northern Ireland do not want are carcases coming into Northern Ireland because we all know that if the meat industry is bringing in carcases, there is no guarantee they are coming from Roscommon or Tipperary. Farmers in Northern Ireland are very interested in continuing and expanding that trade. That is very important, which is why that North-South trade will be critically important in the future.

Regarding more cattle on the hoof, we did meet another agent that wants to export more cattle to Libya next year. The more cattle we can get out, either calves or on the hoof going to Libya or other places in North Africa like Algeria, the better but we have a market just up the road. We need to concentrate on and put as much effort as possible into that. What farmers in Northern Ireland want to see is those cattle going up and being processed in their plants. There is a huge opportunity for Northern Ireland cattle to go over to the UK and supply that market while cattle from the Republic of Ireland could supply the domestic market in Northern Ireland.