Mr. Sean Coughlan:

I acknowledge there is much confusion and fear. I strongly argue it is unfounded fear but it exists nonetheless. I fully accept that, so it is up to us to deal with it.

With regard to the changes, I mentioned in my opening statement that 84% of the herds already in SCEP have enough eligible animals to meet the next requirement at the end of 2025. That is not even taking into account the animals under 16 months, which are in the pipeline.

On the indexes, we do evaluations six times a year. The indexes were always evolving. There has been a significant change. I will go back to Dr. Crosson on that and the climate aspect.

On the matter of trust, a question arises. Some 60% of the pedigree bulls sold last year into beef herds were sold into non-SCEP herds. Those concerned are also using the stars to make the purchases, and that is what is causing significant issues. I am referring to people who have no requirement from a scheme perspective to buy or use the bulls in question, yet they are doing so. I would argue that there has been such a furore because there is such regard for the indexes. Without such regard for them, there would not be a tinkle from those outside SCEP. That is not the case, however. The indexes are updated on an ongoing basis.

Every two months, it is possible that an animal will move from four stars to three stars. How does that happen? For example, if somebody has a bull associated with a significant number of difficult calvings – and these are recorded by a commercial farmer, for example – the calving difficulty percentage for that bull will go up, increasing the associated costs and reducing its star rating. Similarly, if a bull is consistently breeding daughters in respect of which there are very long calving intervals, for example, and this information starts to flow, it will update the indexes.

On the allegation that we are anti-suckler and anti-pedigree, I have attended many more suckler and beef meetings this year than dairy meetings. We had a series of meetings with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine on SCEP in the spring. They were all over the country. There were 11 or 12 of them. Therefore, to suggest we are somehow anti-suckler is not correct. We have fought the fight in this regard right since 2015, when the easiest thing would have been to throw in the towel and give up.