Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

The intervention by the European Commission since January has involved the activation of market support measures. That is the nature of the support the European Union can give to the dairy sector. The aids to public and private storage were brought forward to 1 January and the other market support measures were activated from March onwards. Normally, they end in August but at the July Council we reached agreement with the Commissioner to continue those measures beyond August. A mechanism is in place now such that should the need arise for the continuation of those measures, they can continue until March 2011. We all hope these measures will not be needed, that there will be buoyancy in the market, that the price will return to the proper level and that those market supports would not be needed. However, the very important decision that will be taken on Monday next is that the Commission will give a formal guarantee that it will release the intervention stocks in future in a prudent manner and that it will not create downward pressure on the market and bring us back to where we were.

Last Monday, I was in Vienna and I met representatives from 19 like-minded member states. We have worked together to put pressure on the Commission to ensure the market support measures would be used to the best possible effect. Some 21 countries including France, Germany, Belgium and many others have signed a declaration that will come before the Council of Ministers next Monday. This will put to bed once and for all the quota issue and it will not be revisited. Baseless arguments have been made in recent months to the effect that the quota increase we received through the Common Agriculture Policy health check one year ago was the cause of the fall in price this year. Nothing could be further from the truth. As a country we are more than 8% under quota.

Another very important step for the medium term is that enhanced measures should be put in place to deal with volatility and we must prepare for the ending of quotas in 2015 as well. That was first decided in 2003 and it was confirmed the health check of November last year. It was also confirmed in the Heads of Government meeting last June.

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