Mr. Tom?s Bourke:

I thank the Senator. To kick on from where Mr. Cullinan finished, as we alluded to earlier, anything that facilitates freer trade between us and Northern Ireland is important. We have seen the impact of the live export trade for the slaughter of fit or forward store cattle on the mart trade over the last year or so, when it has been particularly buoyant. We highlighted earlier the concern on the sheep side about what role or impact those live imports are having and whether they are just maintaining efficiencies in our processing or are they being used as a tool to weaken price. The Food Vision group must investigate that in detail. We need an independent report on that to clarify the issue once and for all. At a higher level, we take the EU and UK as one collective sheepmeat production unit and sheepmeat consumption unit. It is largely imbalanced from the perspective of supply and demand. Imports from New Zealand are the issue, which has now been compounded because there was a tariff-free quota coming into the EU of approximately 280,000 tonnes, split between the two. While that did not increase the volumes coming in, what has now effectively increased the volumes is the additional discussions at EU level regarding additional tonnage potentially to New Zealand and, critically, to Australia, which has the capacity to significantly ratchet up. A significant amount of New Zealand's trade goes to China at the moment and it is probably maxed out or close to it. It also now has additional access to the UK trade. That will most likely displace UK lamb, which will be looking for a home. In reality, what determines our price for lamb are the French price and the EU price, because we are so heavily dependent on exports there. Those coming from outside of Europe are going to have the biggest impact on us. That type of volatility in the sector for a low-income, small-scale farm enterprise cannot be absorbed. That is why we must move back towards direct supports for food production and farming.

As the Senator rightly said, all of the current payments available to farmers are environmental payments. There are no criteria really that oblige you to maintain any animals or any level of food production. Taking the sheep sector alone, it represents €476 million in export value to the national economy from 36,000 farms based on an average flock size of 75 ewes, in some of the most difficult farming terrain in the country. We must get back to what the Common Agricultural Policy was originally put in place for. There has been a perfect storm from a farmer's perspective. Direct supports for food production have been removed, while production standards on our farms have increased due to demands and regulation from an EU perspective. Then, there is the issue that our customer base has become accustomed to a cheap food policy. Now, it does not square. The Ukraine war has brought this forward, probably by a number of years. It was heading in that inevitable direction. You simply cannot produce food to the exacting standards we do in this country for the price the consumer is prepared to pay for it. Now, there is the issue of the cost-of-living crisis, which every household is going through across Europe. From a lamb perspective - the issue with organics was highlighted - it is at the higher end of food out there. People are being extremely prudent in their spending because they have no choice. From a lamb perspective, we are an expensive protein. There is no getting away from that. Our prices increased from 2020 on and seem to have hit a point. Analysis of the marketplace shows not only a trade down in the volume of purchases, but in the type of purchases of lamb meat. The cheaper lamb cuts, similar to beef, are now being purchased in lower volumes. When that happens, the spend on both lamb and beef has actually increased because of the price point. As the Senator said, we must get serious if we are serious about protecting food security and sovereignty from an EU perspective and if we are serious about protecting the jobs and income generated by farming and agriculture in Ireland. We must start targeting the supports there towards the level of production and activity on farms. Unfortunately, the original support payment, the Common Agricultural Policy, has now transitioned to an environmental payment. We need a food production payment now, which we are calling for at €30 per ewe. I thank the Senator.