Mr. Pat McCormack:

I thank the Deputy for his questions. He quite rightly alluded to the war in Ukraine, the availability of raw materials last year and the hysteria that was created around that. At that time, and indeed in the previous autumn, we saw a very strong gas price, which was contributing to a slow but steady rise in the price of fertiliser in the autumn of 2021 right into February 2022. We then saw an escalation.

What percentage of fertiliser is bought? I would say on farm for the majority of the year it is somewhere around 15% or 20%. Various farmers have various levels of exposure. I was at an advisory meeting of a local co-op last week and the sales to the end of March were at one third of where they were last year. That is probably a two-stool or twin-tower approach, where, in March last year, there was a hysteria and a tractor and trailer was sent to town for every bit of fertiliser that could be bought. Whereas this year, there is a major stand-off as we await reality in the price of fertiliser.

The Deputy talked about old materials and co-ops and fertiliser manufacturers having old materials. In 2022, we saw some large fertiliser sales groupings shut their book for orders on a Tuesday and, by the following Monday, they had gone up €150 to €250 to €300, with no fertiliser deliveries taken in that period of time. There was money made out of fertiliser that was bought fairly right in the autumn of 2021 and into the spring of 2022. There was money made there in the March-April period.

The Deputy talked about, and it was alluded to by my colleagues to our right, the various different labelling and measuring methods for P and K in various other jurisdictions. If there is mislabelling within this jurisdiction, it needs to be brought to task. I would encourage the Minister and all those responsible for farmers getting what they order and require under a certain label to be proactive on that. That would be a serious breach of trust and commercial trading.