Mr. Joe Healy:

That has long since been an argument, that prices are all within a few cent. I did the market reports for the Farming Independentfor approximately 15 years and there was very little difference a lot of the time. Suppliers never have any problem that they are all on a similar price if is it a good price because when all is said and done they are generally going into very similar markets. If one supplier can get one price there is no reason the next one cannot. An Rialálaí Agraibhia is not involved in pricing but it is very important that people have adequate information. There is a lot of different information out there but one of our roles would be to pull all of that information together. The Deputy mentioned beef. Some 90% of our beef is exported. Half of that now goes to a country outside the EU. Our office is replicated right across the EU, so when it comes to the EU we have the structures in place to follow up and work with our sister offices across the EU. The likes of the UK is not in the EU but there is adequate information there as well. We could pull information from the likes of Bord Bia, for instance, which has a lot of information in that area. Although we are an independent board, our job is to pull all of that information together and to work with suppliers, processors or retailers to try to have fairness and transparency - I will probably mention this a few more times - right across the food chain so that everyone sees a future in their respective part of the food chain. I hope that will include the suppliers getting a fairer return from the consumer.