Mr. Gerry Greally:

The numbers are very fluid to the extent that the young are slaughtered at the end of the year in November-December. If one goes into the farms in the middle of the year, one will see the breeding females only. They will not have kitted down at that stage. To give members some idea of the numbers, we are talking about 15,000 breeding females. Each of those will, on average, have five kits. Straight away, therefore, at the end of the year, the number is up to approximately 90,000 mink at that stage in the year. In the normal course of events, all the young from those females would be slaughtered and we would be left with the breeding females at the end of December of the year concerned. It depends, therefore, on what time of the year we dip into these farms to look at the numbers. The maximum we are talking about is 100,000 or 110,000. It is that sort of number.

As regards numbers of workers, we do not have exact figures here but our estimate is ten or 12 across the three farms. Again, however, that is fluid in that the numbers will increase when they are doing the pelting, which is during the months of November and December. Obviously, they will not need as many workers when there are no young. As the young are weaned and start to grow, the feeding has to be done so there might be extra workers then during that period.

The answer to the question is it depends on when you dip into the farm concerned but 100,000 to 110,000 is the number being bandied around in the media and that is fairly correct. The worker numbers are around ten or 12, but extra contractors would come in towards the back end of the year. As regards welfare and-----