Mr. Michael Dowling:

I have referred to the in-spec bonuses and in-spec criteria. I understand people are from time to time disappointed with the price. In terms of transparency, we asked Grant Thornton to go the whole way along the chain. It was not possible to do so because it was not possible for the company to get sufficient information from operators outside of Ireland to do the final bit. It did, however, get significant, comprehensive and representative information in respect of the Irish market and beef that is exported.

It also could not get sufficient information from operators outside of Ireland to get the final bit on what the retailer of food service operator or manufacturer was paying. That is not all that is surprising. There is no compunction on people who are buying Irish beef from Irish processors outside of Ireland to supply information, which effectively means supplying information on their margins. They would normally regard that as confidential and would probably be slow enough to provide it, even in their own markets. That is, therefore, a problem. It is not a problem manufactured by the task force, however. It is a problem of people not wanting to give information they do not necessarily have to give. That is one issue.

Through Bord Bia, we got significant additional indices comparing Irish prices with prices across Europe. In particular, Bord Bia has produced an index providing a composite price based on the internal producer prices in the main markets to which we supply beef. That shows, over a long period, a reasonable correlation between the price being paid in Ireland and the price that would be paid across all the markets we mainly supply in respect of their own beef. Sometimes the exports composite price is above our price and sometimes our price is above theirs. The difference is not all that significant at any stage, however. That provides some degree of greater transparency than was there before the task force came into operation. Ms McPhillips wants to add something to that.