Mr. Bill Callanan:

I will answer this at a couple levels. First, as the Secretary General said, engagement is ongoing with the Commission. As the Senator knows, the Minister issued a formal invitation to the Commission to visit at some stage. We had not received a response to that and we followed up with a further request that the Commission come here to see some of the practices we have in this country.

I have also chaired a water quality group which engages with farmers. There are two aspects to this. There is a technical presentation we have to make but, critically, the biggest issues is whether we are seeing water quality improvements. Our focus point in respect of that work is the water quality group and looking at three objectives, namely, how we improve water quality; how we improve compliance; and how we better connect farmers with water quality locally so they can understand why they are doing things and that it is not just a rule being proposed or developed by the Department. That type of work is ongoing.

The Secretary General is right that the clear objective is to maintain it at the highest possible stocking rate. We have participated in quite a number of outreach meetings as a Department recently. Carbery and Arrabawn held events. I spoke at a Tírlan event. Lakeland had an event where we engaged with farmers to understand the importance of a collective approach. The Department has a responsibility to make a scientific argument, but that has to be based on a comprehensive engagement by farmers, stakeholders and industry to ensure we are progressing improvements in water quality. I have been clear with everybody that we have a unique production system in this country. However, we do not have a unique target which is common to all EU member states in terms of improving water quality. We must frame our thinking in that construct. That is the clear policy. We are engaging with farmers practically with farm walks and through the water quality group in respect of everybody having a common understanding of that objective.

A question was raised on the issue of genotyping. I will bring that back in relation to somebody getting tags three days after letting out. I was not sure we were aware of what the let-out date was.