Mr. John Enright:

On the issue of a fertiliser register, we are certainly not suggesting more regulation of farmers. I can assure the Senator of that. The fertiliser register is coming in and will record what farmers are purchasing, and we are saying we need to take advantage of the fertiliser register given it is coming in. At the moment, for example, meat plants are required to publish weekly the beef prices they pay to farmers. Why should we not compel the sellers of fertiliser to publish their prices weekly? It would allow us to know the price of fertiliser in Mayo, west Cork, Wexford or wherever. It would be a regulation not on farmers but on the suppliers of fertiliser, and that would be important with a view to getting real data. As our president mentioned, last March the suppliers stopped quoting and two weeks later, the price increased by €200, €300 or €400 a tonne. They are not going to record that voluntarily. Let us be straight about that.

On the observatory question, we are involved at the moment in a milk market observatory and a beef market observatory. They certainly have a role to play.

However, we find that while they have a certain level of data, when there is a problem they do not have the detailed data that we require. It goes down to the margins that have been taken by the different links in the supply chain. That is sadly absent in this, which is an aspect the Commission and our own Government continue to ignore. They can tell us everything about ourselves but when you go up or down the supply chain, we are told it is a commercially sensitive issue. That is the standard response you get. That needs to change.