Mr. Philip Carroll:

If I can add to that, if the overall market is looking for that in-spec. animal that we talk about of 19 kg to 21 kg, that, in itself, discounts the value of the heavier one. You are looking at 75% that are in that category.

If you look at the various cuts from an individual carcase, they are all exported. They are exported, as the Senator will be aware, to multiple customers abroad. We export to approximately 30 countries. You have 30 customers in different countries. Within those countries, you have multiple purchasers. We are focused to a large extent, and Bord Bia in all of its marketing efforts is focused, on getting the blue-chip customers that are in those markets or as many of them as we can. They are setting the standard and if we are not striving to get the highest volume within that in-spec. category, then we are risking losing out on a proportion of that higher value market because we are supplying not lower quality meat product but a different specification of product than that market is looking for, and we lose the value of that. That value lost is in the trade. If that value lost then impacts farmers, it is directly because there is a greater value in the market for the higher in-spec. product.

Can I come back to the other question the Senator asked around market returns?

We fully acknowledge all of the challenges that the primary sector has faced across all sectors, and not just the sheep sector, over the last couple of years, particularly when we were not operating during Covid for various reasons. We lost the food service market across all of the sectors during that period, and it was difficult. Looking right across the value proposition in the market, the price of sheep and cattle over that period and the pricing structures versus the markets within which we have been trading, and specifically where we are now compared to a year ago, overall, the average price has not changed, but it had grown significantly into 2022. We had hit record sheep prices, as members are aware. Looking at the markets into which we are exporting, we are exporting into the major markets in Europe. We face competition in those markets. For example, the French pay the highest price for lamb; they always have. They have a domestic market which is very significant and they favour the domestic producer. We are the interloper, as it were. We are probably one of the importers of choice, but we are not equated with the domestic market. When a retailer wants to sell lamb products, and the representatives of Bord Bia can address this more than I can, like the UK with beef, to a large extent they show their retail facings as domestic product, so we fall into another category. The other aspect - and it applies to the other markets we are engaged in - is that we have costs that are different from the costs that we face against a competitor in that domestic market. We have all the costs associated with transport, distribution, marketing and all of that stuff that the internal customer does not face. There are additional costs-----