Danny Healy-Rae warns EU rules will end live exports

Chairman, thank you very much and witnesses, I want to thank you for your presence here and just the way that we feel about it anyway is that the livestock trade is very important to all livestock farmers across the country. Otherwise, like you said there, the processors would have the ball to themselves and lower the income that farmers or the price that farmers would get when they'd be selling their animals and we appreciate what you go through and what you do and I mean, as you said, there's only two points of export and our distance is far from the market, farther than other countries and you have a lot of things to contend with, with drivers' holes and regulations. So I suppose the way I have a few questions to ask you and if you can be brief with each question so I get to the next question, with each answer so that I can get to the next question. Why do you, do we believe the live export sector is important? We've kind of gone through that for Ireland's farming economy, so you might just briefly reiterate that again. Well, it creates a competition, you know, like we, when you see, since Blue Tongue came in, with those more regulations, like the price dropped back rapidly when we had to step, when we had to slow down and step out of the market a bit. It's all supply and demand, like, you know, when we're there looking, pushing hard to get them, it drives the price rapid up. There can be a difference of a euro, a kilo in a week when you're in the market and a week when you're out. So then, how could more be, give you extra support or would you expect more from Board B? Board B currently do, they've created lots of effort for us, they've created lots of new initiatives, but what we could avail of is more support and getting to meet with EU institutions, with MEPs. At the moment we're facing lots of changes, the costs that we are absorbing at the moment is really unsustainable. With Board B, they gave us, I think it's 40 to 45 percent of our rebate on terms of our flights or our bills, things like that, but we would need to be opening more doors with MEPs, having a stronger voice in Europe. We are an island nation, as Derek has said, and we're very much underrepresented at an EU level, whereas we feel that much more robust efforts on our behalf would maybe give us a stronger voice there. We're facing unprecedented change at the moment coming from Brussels in terms of logistical changes and regulatory changes. Just in relation to that as well, Board B collected levy and EPA towards that. That's correct. Maybe you'd like to get some bit of a contribution back from them for what purpose? Correct, because we feel that exporters would feel that they are contributing via the Board B levy and they feel that not enough has been done for them on this levy. They would like just to get a little bit of it returned to try to help to cover the costs for marketing, for advocacy and for the general advertising of the business itself. And then in what way do exporters feel they have been overlooked or maybe not recognized in past talks with government bodies and the EU? They feel there that it's a situation where decisions are taken without them being there and they're just told afterwards what to do and expected to accept changes that are coming to them without having any say in these changes. So you actually have no say when these decisions are taken? None. And the farmers depend on you for to move the cattle, for to keep the wheel turning, so you'd like to be involved more in those discussions? Correct, as the industry professionals and those who are at the very forefront of the exports and animal welfare on the exports, we feel that there's decisions being made by people who are not actively involved in the industry and as a result of that, exporters are faced with the changes that they bring in without anyone having to talk to them or negotiate with them or even explored what the problems with those changes could bring. And then as we have only limited shipping routes and in bad weather of course, how can this affect the live export and what way could it be improved? I suppose we could increase the capacity on the ships, we've got limited capacity on the ships, limited amount of spaces available and then when there is a sections of bad weather or such like, there tends to be a backlog of general freight and it seems to be that the general freight then would take precedence over the livestock to clear the backlog of that, whereas livestock then is left behind and the leaving of that livestock behind obviously creates animal welfare problems that exporters have to contend with themselves but it also creates then added financial burdens of those trucks having to be returned to home or not leaving in the first place, extra feeding, extra care, everything else, so the effect is a domino effect then, it knocks on, so what should have went perhaps on a Tuesday is now not getting away till the Thursday, on top of that then you have the drivers who thought they had a job, now you have no job and this everything just knocks on, so we can maybe look at increasing the spaces on the ship and so that would be a positive step forward. And we have rising fuel costs here in this country and we can maybe look at increasing the spaces on the ship and so that would be a positive step forward. And we have rising fuel costs here in this country, I'm sure that affecting years ago through Europe, have we made any moves towards looking for extra help with the rising fuel costs? We need government intervention here, at the moment the costs of running any vehicle, the costs of running a livestock vehicle are coming close to 90 euros per hour, per every hour they're on the road, that in itself is unsustainable, on a 10-hour journey that's 900 euros just on fuel, on top of that we're on road tolls, we're on, as is everyone else, we're not saying that livestock exports are any different, but I just mean, and all those costs have to be added on to the cost of the animal in the first place and we're trying to trade with our EU partners, when we're paying so much more on fuel than our EU partners, we're paying so much more on ships than our EU partners, it makes that competitiveness very, very difficult to reach, it's crippling and if it continues to go the way it's going, it will cause an end to things. There are proposed changes by the EU in relation to what is it, EC number 12 slash 2005, this is a threat to Ireland's future in live exports, would you explain? It's a huge threat to the continuous of various livestock exports, primarily on two or three of the main points that they want to change, for example, they're talking about reducing the height between the decks on the trailer to increase more height above their heads with their classified as a dead airspace, so at the moment livestock exporters who are transporting calves are putting calves on three floors, okay, so to contrast that then with these new heights that they're trying to bring in, that will effectively remove that third floor, so the men who are transporting calves will now be limited to transporting two decks of calves, that cost then becomes crippling, it will simply put an end to that trade, it's unsustainable to remove that deck, on top of that then it's the same for the larger cattle, they're looking to increase that height, if that height increases by too much, you won't be able to re-use the roof of the trailer, you're then breaking the four meter height barrier that lots of companies have, which is a problem, you know, it's obviously a problem for the logistics, but it's a problem for police and everything else, so that puts an end to that trade, they're looking to introduce on-board feeding, which we think is not really going to work either, and it comes with a host of problems for itself, and another huge change that they're looking to bring in is the change on the rules, and currently, for example, adult cattle can travel a total of 29 hours, so the 14 hour of a journey, one hour of a rest, followed by another 14 hour of a journey, after which they have to be unloaded into an EU-approved control post, unloaded, fed, rested for 24 hours, the vehicle is then cleaned and sterilized and re-bedded, and then they're reloaded, they're looking to change that, and there's talk at the moment, we haven't got exact figures, but there's talk at the moment that the maximum journey time could very well be reduced to 22 hours, that would be removing quite a large amount of the customers that currently exist, for example, the south of Spain or south of Italy would be beyond the reach, into Eastern Europe as well, they would be beyond the reach of various exports, conveniently, they would be within the reach of Armenian competitors within the EU, particularly the German countries, but we would be out of that, and which would kind of give them a monopoly on trade going forward, they're also one of the biggest pushers of this change, our German colleagues.