Mr. Karol Kissane:

On the market observatory, this was mentioned in our submission. I can confirm we are actively involved in what is happening with it at European Commission level. Twenty people are going to sit on it and the IFA has confirmed we will have a seat on it at European Commission level. I believe from communications I have seen that the first meeting is to happen in the last week of June and the plan is for it to meet twice a year. Like anything, it is all good and well setting up a committee like this and having meetings, but it will really be about the output and what will come from it. The idea is it will examine the production, prices and so on of fertiliser throughout the EU. When we were looking at this, we submitted to the Commission that not only did we need to monitor those aspects in the EU but, for us in Ireland because of what we discussed earlier in the context of the North of Ireland, also in the UK and to see what the prices are there. Realistically, the prices in the UK, whether in Northern Ireland or Britain, are probably a lot more relevant to us than even those in France, our closest EU neighbour, so we need to have the UK within the process. That is something we suggested to the Commission and it will be, we hope, taken on board in order that those prices can be taken in as well.

On the price side, we are working with COPA, the European farm body, to put some data together on prices bi-weekly throughout 2023 for a number of products. Perhaps the committee could help us in this regard. We really need the industry in Ireland, whether merchants, co-operatives or whatever, to engage and supply the average price at which they were selling these products in each bi-weekly period during the first six months of the year, so I hope the industry will come forward with those prices when requests go out to it. I am aware that many of us during the meeting have quoted the CSO figures. The CSO issues one or two pages to co-operatives and merchants to be filled in once a month giving the average price at which they have been selling over the month. I hope we can get hold of that information and supply it to the EU.

The observatory will probably be up and running by the middle of the year, but it is a question of what will come out of it. The ICMSA mentioned earlier the anti-dumping measures and the tariffs on urea coming into the EU being suspended at the moment, but they are only suspended. One thing we would call for is that in regard to Russia and Belarus, some action needs to be taken. For freedom of movement and to give some chance to EU farmers, that needs to be completely taken away to allow for fair competition for Irish farmers when they are buying fertiliser.