The Minister claims that reducing the rate of the intervention butter over five years from 70,000 to 30,000 will create the opportunity "to give the Irish dairy processing industry a lead in time in order to get away from its over-dependence on intervention". The Minister neglects to mention where farmers can sell their excess produce. In 2002, the amount of skimmed milk powder alone sold into intervention was 50,000 tonnes and the Minister has not explained how this shortfall will be made up. Farmers must now sell milk without compensation for 75% of the current price which ranges from 92c to 96c. A dairy farmer with an 80,000 gallon milk quota will lose roughly €7,500 as a result of these proposals. How is he or she expected to survive?