Mr. Andy Doyle:

If I may take up three of Senator Daly's points of questioning, a Chathaoirligh, there are not so many diversification options. Yes, you hear about oilseed rape. It has become a more consistent crop over time. More people will have some of it but it will not replace huge swaths of barley land. Many diversification options hundreds of hectares rather than thousands of hectares. We are limited. We have lots of bad experience in the past.

On the issue of GM feed into Irish beef, it is inevitable because GM feedstuffs are coming in either as the primary grain or as the byproduct of primary grain. It is going into the feed chain, so the answer is that it has to be there.

With regard to bread, it is possible to a small degree but quite unlikely because wheat will still be the major ingredient for most flours and we do not have GM wheat globally, so that one is less likely, but there are other products going into bread. Mr. Carter mentioned soya. We have peas and other stuff going in. Many crops are not GM. Bits of GM soya could well be going in there.

The last point I will take up is gene editing. We would be absolutely in favour of gene editing but, unfortunately, it just keeps being pushed down the road on us. It has the potential to offer alternative solutions to a total dependence on chemistry, which could be very useful. Unfortunately, such solutions are seen to be quite a while away because the crops that will be gene-edited first are the ones that are currently genetically modified, and they do not include the bulk of the crops we are growing.