Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

My first job as co-op manager in Cornamona was to build a large sheep shed and put 2,000 sheep in it. We proved that the economics of feeding grass meal to sheep is not hugely profitable with the pure breed of mountain sheep. It would work much better with cross-bred sheep from the lower hills.

I agree with the Minister of State on the work being done by my successors in respect of Connemara hill lamb, but there is still a significant problem in selling plain mountain lamb on the market. Something must be done about it urgently. I urge the Minster of State to do whatever he can to allow this trade to continue in operation. This has been a challenge for the past 30 years. We must ascertain if there are other ways of ensuring the sustainability both of farming mountain sheep and of the market for it, because it appears the latter is up one year and down the next year. The market is volatile and that is a feature of it that has not changed in all the years I have been dealing with it.

I note what the Minister of State said about Portugal and Spain. I used to export sheep to Italy. I recall flying them live by jet to Italy in the late 1970s. I did not get an answer to my question on the Libyan market.

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