Andrew Doyle (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On the final point made by Deputy Fitzmaurice, the chairman has shown leadership. He and officials from the Department passed through the group outside Agriculture House to meet other farm organisations that had declined the offer to meet him in the Department. He will continue his engagement of bilateral discussions with each stakeholder.

I cannot indicate a date at this point. I wish I could. The issue of injunctions could have been dealt with at the meeting in Agriculture House had members of the task force been allowed in. Rather than preventing them from entering the building, the protestors should have allowed them to be confronted on that issue under the structure of the task force. The issue could, perhaps, have been dealt with as a preliminary to the meeting.

In the context of the proposed number of meetings, there will be as many as is necessary. I do not want to pre-empt the work of the chairman. There are a number of measures that need to addressed but all of them will not necessarily require consideration by the full task force. It may be possible for some of them to be addressed by working groups. However, I am only speculating. There may be a range of meetings that will be led by working groups comprised of members of the task force rather than the full task force.

There is an agreement in place and actions and measures that need to be taken and addressed. I will come back to Deputy Fitzmaurice on the price index because I do not have an answer to hand. These issues should be dealt with through the forum. I appeal to everybody, including those who feel aggrieved at the way they were treated on Monday last in not being allowed to attend the meeting and those who prevented them from doing so, to let this task force set about its work. There have been two meetings already, one in Backweston and the other in Agriculture House. Let the task force get up and running. It is the interests of those of us who are committed to the beef sector to seek progress on all fronts.

See this speech in context