Following proposals put forward by two Fine Gael TDs, Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney is expected to launch a new dairy industry forum.

Cork northwest TD Michael Creed and John Deasy from Waterford have called on Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney to introduce a dairy industry partnership akin to the beef forum to keep an eye on the sector as we enter a less structured period.

The partnership will look to draw on all the key stakeholders in the dairy sector from co-ops to the Department of Agriculture itself. The two TDs brought a motion before the Dáil on Wednesday, calling for the group to be established.

“There was no national collaboration or sense that we needed to think about the change that was coming. Or to bring all the actors that were involved in dairying and put the heads together for the massive volatility that well be coming following the ending of the quotas,” Deputy Deasy told the Irish Farmers Journal on Tuesday.

“It will work, even on a subliminal level at farm gate level,” Creed added.

“This group would be watching on and looking ahead, with all the expertise to anticipate and foresee difficulties coming down the line and deal with them. Whether they are political issues in terms of market closures or whether they’re just global milk prices.

“I think the industry would be more confident in the post-quota environment knowing that this large body is behind them and supporting them,” Creed said.

Creed and Deasy have been planning the partnership since the publication of the Teagasc 2015 income forecast in December 2014. Teagasc, at the time, was forecasting that milk prices could drop to as low as 27c/l in 2015.

“The (Teagasc) figures threw things out of kilter a little bit… Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney has done a very good job in dealing with what’s needed (after quota abolition) but the one element that we felt was missing was co-ordination between all the different bodies,” Deasy said.

Banks

Creed added that now is the time for the partnership to be established, which will also look closely at how the country’s banks’ methods of lending.

“We know what happens when banks run riot. The dairy industry is not beyond making the mistakes of the construction industry. Sometimes, it takes someone to say: ‘Hey, we need to calm in down here’; that’s no bad thing either,” he said.

So, how would the dairy industry partnership look?

“The key thing here is that it needs to be driven at senior level in the Department; by the secretary general (Aidan O’Driscoll) we hope. Having Aidan O’Driscoll would give it serious credibility. The rest would be made up by the Irish Dairy Board, the processors, the different farm representatives, the advisory services and the banks. These are five pillars that I would see as being critical to it,” Deputy Creed said.