Ms Maria Dunne:

What we actively looked at was the market situation this year for the sheep sector. Sheep prices were lower than previous years at the start of the year. However, over the course of the year, they balanced out and are now largely tracking 2022 prices, to the extent they are only 2% lower for the year to date. It must be acknowledged that those 2022 prices were significantly higher than those of previous years. Costs were an issue earlier in the year but have since moderated. As the issue for the sector was not specifically attributable to Brexit, we looked at the situation and dealt with the issue in the normal budgetary cycle by the allocation of additional one-off funding of €15 million for 2024. That was the analysis of the sheep sector that was done this year.