Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail)
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That is only a quarter. That is a poor. I accept Ornua has made an effort to help the co-ops and there was a very good bonus payout for 2021 but we find ourselves in a unique situation here. Many farmers who signed up to this were under a lot of pressure from financial institutions to do so. Especially for those with a high level of borrowing, financial institutions put individual farmers under pressure to sign up to these fixed price contracts. In earlier times, fixed price contracts had the cost of inputs factored into them but these contracts were a simplistic contract just stating price with no protections whatsoever. We have a number of farmers with 80% or 85% of their milk in these. It varies downwards depending on what part of the county you are in. Some co-ops did not offer more than 15% to any individual suppliers. I know of one, a fairly small co-op in overall terms, where a significant number of its suppliers have 85% of their milk on these contracts. Unless those farmers get significant help, they are going to be in serious trouble. I refer to giving them help with conditions attached - that is, that they have to sign up to a contract going forward at whatever the price is. These farmers have it up to their necks with fixed price contracts at the moment and they will not want to know about signing up. Whatever help is being given to them, and some of the co-ops have come up with their own schemes to help suppliers, this is a supply chain issue. There is the primary producer and the processor. Mr. Jordan said he thought Ornua has only 33% to 40% of the fixed price contracts. I accept that and I am not saying Ornua has them all, but unless everyone along the supply chain shares the pain here, the primary producer is going to go out of business. For whatever reason fellows signed up to it, they are caught now in a unique situation. No one expected the price of the raw material to go as high as it is, or the price of the inputs. They are caught in a bind and they are going to need help.

I have reports from Glanbia council meeting the other day where men broke down and cried. These men are facing financial ruin. A man with 500,000 or 600,000 l tied into a scheme like this, unless he gets significant help, he just cannot stay in business. It is in everyone in the dairy industry's interest to try to keep these men afloat. Hindsight is great. They signed up to this thinking they were giving their business stability. It has had the exact opposite effect. It has put them into dire financial circumstance.

I accept Ornua made a big payout to the co-ops last year and it made a great profit. While I accept it will have an impact on the performance of Ornua in 2022, I would urge it to come up with a package for the co-ops that deal with it that will allow an extra payment to these farmers. Give or take some of the figures, most of the co-ops have come up with something between 5 cent and 8 cent. We will not put a figure on it here but if Ornua, as a huge player in the industry and a major purchaser of dairy products, could bring another package to the table, this would enable another payout to these suppliers to bridge the gap from the price they are on to where the marketplace is.

There is a huge difference at the moment. You are talking about more than 20 cent per litre between the price they are receiving and where the marketplace is. If we take an average of 6 cent, which some of the co-operatives have gone with, there could be another top-up on that. We had the Irish Co-operative Organisation Society, ICOS, before the committee a number of weeks ago and we made the same points. It is in everyone's interest to try to keep these farmers in business. They are top-class producers of dairy products. Their advisers, whoever was advising them, could have not foreseen a situation like this coming into play where there has been such a rise in the raw material price and in input costs. I plead with Ornua, as a major player in the industry and a hugely respected cornerstone of an industry that has served farmers very well over a long period of time, to come up with a better package than what is on the table at the moment which would allow another payout to these affected producers.