Mr. Philip Carroll:

I thank the Deputy for that. We are aware of that and we can see similarities between that and what is happening in the suckler herd. There is a natural decline occurring there as well. We would be concerned about that and the impact it may have. As we have said all evening, we are competitive when it comes to the price in the main markets in which we are operating. There is a reasonable proposition there for sheep producers. We recognise equally that they have faced enormous costs. This is probably less so on hills than in the lowlands, but nonetheless, these are significant costs. The Deputy mentioned some kind of a premium that might be made available. This came up previously. Some suggestion was made in an earlier conversation about the potential for BAR funding of some additional premium. My response was that it might form part of what the Government could do, although there is a limited time period within which BAR funding can be allocated in any event. That is running out. Some other accompanying measures might be required to give support to the very farmers the Deputy is talking about.

Regarding the market returns that are there, they are pretty strong, they are very competitive and they have been for quite a while. From that commercial perspective, there is a relatively good return depending on what point of view you take on it. The more production we have, the more quality lamb we can process and export. There is an exportable volume. We are a net exporter. We could potentially fill a gap in the market and attempt to displace some of the imports that are coming from places like Australia and New Zealand. That would be a challenge in itself because these are much cheaper importers into the European Union. However, we are still only approximately 90% self-sufficient in Europe, so there is a bit of space in the market for that. Yes, it would concern us if there were to be a significant decline in the level of output at a farm level.