Leading members of the Beef Plan Movement have said they want to see the individual processors and retailers at any further talks between stakeholders in the beef sector.
Beef Plan Movement co-chairs Eamonn Corley and Hugh Doyle, along with Beef Plan member Michael McNally, attended the High Court on Friday, where injunctions were being taken by meat processors against individual farmers.
Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal after permanent injunctions were granted for ABP, Slaney and Dawn, Doyle said factories and retailers, not Meat Industry Ireland (MII), were needed at talks.
Requests
“MII knows what our demands or requests are, call them what you want. They know what they are.
"We don’t need to go in and spend another 38-and-a-half hours going around and around in circles,” he told the Irish Farmers Journal.
Doyle said MII had to be willing to come up with solutions because "the industry is broken, the dogs in the street know that”.
McNally said MII was "a waste of time" and “a mudguard for the big guys to speak with the one voice”.
“I think the Competition Authority has serious questions to answer in that situation.
"There’s no point us speaking to, as far as I’m concerned, I don’t think there’s any point having any further discussion with Meat Industry Ireland. They’re in there with clear instructions – no, never, zero,” McNally said.
Doyle expressed his frustration with the Competition Authority and called for an independent regulator to “grab the meat industry by the scruff of the neck and have fairness for the primary producer”.
Individual farmers
Corley said the “unaccountable equation” was the individual farmers protesting at factory gates.
He said those farmers were "very annoyed" and there was "no telling what they were prepared to do".
He said they were “willing to do almost anything to survive”.
McNally said farmers didn’t fit the factories' equation: “We’re just there to be used, but we don’t see it that way anymore.
"We’re going to have our say because we are the critical people who produce the raw material for them and without us they can go nowhere.”
Read more
Committal order against farmer protester lifted at High Court
Dawn Meats criticises ‘sinister development’ at Ballyhaunis
ABP, Dawn and Slaney Foods injunctions made permanent
Leading members of the Beef Plan Movement have said they want to see the individual processors and retailers at any further talks between stakeholders in the beef sector.
Beef Plan Movement co-chairs Eamonn Corley and Hugh Doyle, along with Beef Plan member Michael McNally, attended the High Court on Friday, where injunctions were being taken by meat processors against individual farmers.
Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal after permanent injunctions were granted for ABP, Slaney and Dawn, Doyle said factories and retailers, not Meat Industry Ireland (MII), were needed at talks.
Requests
“MII knows what our demands or requests are, call them what you want. They know what they are.
"We don’t need to go in and spend another 38-and-a-half hours going around and around in circles,” he told the Irish Farmers Journal.
Doyle said MII had to be willing to come up with solutions because "the industry is broken, the dogs in the street know that”.
McNally said MII was "a waste of time" and “a mudguard for the big guys to speak with the one voice”.
“I think the Competition Authority has serious questions to answer in that situation.
"There’s no point us speaking to, as far as I’m concerned, I don’t think there’s any point having any further discussion with Meat Industry Ireland. They’re in there with clear instructions – no, never, zero,” McNally said.
Doyle expressed his frustration with the Competition Authority and called for an independent regulator to “grab the meat industry by the scruff of the neck and have fairness for the primary producer”.
Individual farmers
Corley said the “unaccountable equation” was the individual farmers protesting at factory gates.
He said those farmers were "very annoyed" and there was "no telling what they were prepared to do".
He said they were “willing to do almost anything to survive”.
McNally said farmers didn’t fit the factories' equation: “We’re just there to be used, but we don’t see it that way anymore.
"We’re going to have our say because we are the critical people who produce the raw material for them and without us they can go nowhere.”
Read more
Committal order against farmer protester lifted at High Court
Dawn Meats criticises ‘sinister development’ at Ballyhaunis
ABP, Dawn and Slaney Foods injunctions made permanent
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