Minister ‘out of touch’ on beef crisis
GALWAY’S IFA Livestock Committee Chairman, Michael Flynn, has said this week that the Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed, seems to be ‘completely out of touch’ in relation to the seriousness of the current beef price crisis.
Mr. Flynn said that the IFA had pulled out of last week’s Beef Roundtable forum because ‘it was nothing more than a talking shop’ with not an ounce of progress being made in addressing the primary issue of cuts in cattle prices.
“I don’t say this lightly, but the Minister has been an absolute disaster in terms of making any progress in taking on the factories in their organised policy of cutting the price they’re paying Irish farmers for their cattle.
“If beef was selling for five cent a kilo, then the factories would want to cut it to four cent. The meat plants have done everything possible to take advantage of the run of severe weather conditions that clicked in since July of last year.
“I would also call on the Competition Authority of Ireland to launch a serious probe into the prices being offered to farmers for their cattle from the factories – every week, they [the meat plants] are all singing off the same hymn sheet,” said Michael Flynn.
He added that while the kill numbers for the past two weeks were shoving around the 38,000/39,000 mark, every morsel of beef was being sold by the meat plants to very vibrant home, UK and international markets.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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