Mr. Bryan Barry:

I think we should be clear, because we need to convey the seriousness of the situation. We are 14 working days away from 31 December. The best-case scenario is that we get a free trade deal and the best-case scenario is a hard Brexit. The best-case scenario is a significant deterioration in the terms of trade with the UK, with the British market, which is the market for half of our beef. We will have higher costs, greatly increased bureaucracy and significant difficulty in the other areas in terms of the land bridge. We are going to have these difficulties anyway.

The worst-case scenario is no deal. Mr. Tim Cullinan, our president, has described it as Armageddon. That is a total disaster zone. That is how serious it is. Even in the best-case scenario of a deal, we will need access to the €5 billion Brexit reserve fund that we lobbied strongly for. The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, and this Government and the previous one pressed strongly for that and brought it to fruition. We are going to need support from that fund in the best-case scenario. There is no doubt about the fact that we are going to be faced with significantly increased costs. It is just a matter of whether they are going to be relatively limited, within the goodwill of a free trade agreement or whether agriculture ends up in Armageddon territory. We need to be looking at the possibility of support coming in early next year, even in the context of a free trade agreement, for the kind of disruption that will happen.

We know that some of the bigger players in the industry have worked hard to put stock in store to try to get over the initial period, but we are going to face into a situation where the terms of trade are different. Even under a free trade agreement, down the road, we can see our position in that market potentially being eroded. That is why the level playing field is of the utmost importance. In a free trade agreement, and in the current negotiations, it is important that the UK is tied in as far as possible into current standards, as well as into standards as they evolve in the environment and food safety areas, among others, in order that it cannot undermine the value of its own market and pursue a cheap food policy, which will affect us and displace us out of the UK market. This is what I am talking about in the context of a free trade agreement. That is what it has to be.