Mr. Pat McCormack:

The Deputy asked about our members. Other stakeholders who appeared before the committee said it could be a loss of earnings for them. In many cases, the other stakeholders are either co-ops or pharmacies. Not near as much is going through the pharmacy as was the case. Given the age profile of farmers with more over 75 than under 35, some of them would be calling to the pharmacy anyway.

There is a convenience element to it. That is just one point.

I pointed out earlier in response to Senator Paul Daly that the majority of farmers are shareholders in co-ops. They run accounts in them. Vets, in many cases, are family-run operations. It is very hard for them to provide the level of credit that may be required if someone is putting in a shed of cattle, dosing them and feeding them to finish. There is a better chance of getting that credit from the co-op. That also creates competition. One of the witnesses behind me alluded to this, and maybe it was meant with no offence. He said that from now on this will deliver and we will have to do what we should be doing. It is my belief that since 2012, and the introduction of the dairy audits and the beef audits before that year, we have had great traceability from an animal medicines perspective. When the audit in its entirety is put together, and fertiliser usage and so on is put in place, we have a unique selling point, which is used by Ornua and Bord Bia. That must be built upon but it should be done in a practical way that is not going to eliminate or reduce the result for the farmer.

Regarding the audits, it was said that the information would be available to Bord Bia. If an audit and inspection is done of my farm every 18 months, that is my information and it should require my permission to use those data going forward. That is critical.

On fertiliser, our herd numbers are linked to the animal identification and movement, AIM, system and the single farm payment. That should be the level of bureaucracy required to purchase fertiliser, rather than this notion of having to register as a purchaser and a user and all that. All that should be required is the herd number, which is linked to the stock and the area farmed. It should be made straightforward to reduce the complexity. In the earlier session I talked about the mental health of farmers. This is not going to do anything to improve that survey result.