Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is important that we do not talk ourselves into a crisis. The price in Ireland are still above 30 cent a litre. We are in a period during which many dairy farmers are in drystock farming and not as much milk is being produced. The key issues are anticipating what the price will be for milk in the spring and allowing co-ops to offload much of the produce they have in storage, whether it be cheese, butter or powder. To date, the Commission has facilitated the provision of storage assistance which has been very helpful. Ireland has drawn down 40% of the funding available at European level for the provision of storage assistance in the case of butter. We would like to see the provision of storage assistance expanded to include cheese. This was the case, but the Commission pulled back, largely because of Italy - it was a huge ask - which was not in the spirit of what we were trying to do.

On the intervention price, we have made it very clear that it equates to 21 cent a litre and that we cannot allow milk prices to reduce to this level. If we are to use an intervention price, it must be at a more realistic level, certainly well above a figure in the mid-twenties.

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