Mr. Fergal Byrne:

I am one of the two ICSA representatives on the wool council. Seán McNamara, whose place I am taking at the committee tonight, is the other. Within the wool council, a company limited by guarantee has been set up in the past week or ten days. It took three or four months to get that established. The first official event the wool council attended was the Dingle Food Festival. It was mentioned in the Irish Farmers' Journal that it was also represented at an event at Gurteen Agricultural College. That is where we are at the minute. It is all ready to go at this stage. There are 21 different members on the wool council. It is there and is ready to move at this stage. From next week on, the committee will hear more about it. We will probably be back looking for different funding for that as well.

On the €12 figure, we are looking for that to increase to €35. We want €5 of that €35 to go towards the presentation of the wool, in order that the wool is presented correctly to merchants. Mr. Punch talked about cattle and getting genotypes. Similarly, we should look to get the micron of the wool tested so we will be able to see exactly what wool is out there. It might not make much addition in the short term, but in the long term it will make a huge addition to the marketing of the wool.