Mr. Sean Coughlan:

I will say a couple of things very briefly. The first is that this is something that suckler beef systems globally are struggling with in terms of where they are going. Input costs are going up. Globally, cow size is continuing to get bigger and bigger and there are impacts on greenhouse gases. What these indexes are doing is looking to stabilise that.

The second point relates to what will happen if we do not make these changes. Breeding is a long-term business. It will take six or seven years before the full impact of these changes take effect. If we are back before this committee in 2030 we would rightly be accused of having sleepwalked the suckler industry into a cow that was not fit for purpose. That is something that we could not do.