There are five main proposals stemming from Saturday night's live exporters' meeting hosted by Independent Ireland in Athlone.
The meeting was held in the wake of Brittany Ferries' decision to cease carrying livestock, which sent shockwaves through the agricultural sector.
Ciaran Mullooly MEP and Michael Fitzmaurice TD of Independent Ireland heard from live exporters, farm organisations and farmers and collated all contributions into a five point-plan.
The proposals were as follows:
1. Meeting with Irish Ferries
Michael Fitzmaurice outlined that he and Ciaran Mullooly had a meeting organised with Irish Ferries on Friday 21 August. There were two main aims of the meeting – to establish if Irish Ferries had any capacity and a willingness to offer additional weekly sailings and to get confirmation on its commitment to continuing to export livestock. The latter point was particularly important given a comment made by Michael Fitzmaurice regarding speculation that Irish Ferries was potentially being offered for sale.
Fitzmaurice added that Irish Ferries offered a vital service to the agricultural sector and ensuring this remained the case was critical.
2. Establish if Brittany Ferries was legally obliged to carry livestock
The meeting was told that there could be a legal requirement for any ferry sailing from Ireland to commit to carrying livestock. It was stated that this was a condition of ferries obtaining a licence in the past but it was unclear if this remained the case. If there was a legal requirement, then Brittany Ferries would be obliged to make a U-turn on its recent decision to exit carrying livestock.
3. Achieve unity and a common goal between live exporters
Ciaran Mullooly said a critical component of working through the current pinch point and developing a long-term plan to ensure live exporters had sufficient capacity to export livestock was to have all live exporters and farm organisations coming together and developing a unified plan of action.
Mullooly said that Independent Ireland would be making contact with all live exporters in the coming days, with the ultimate aim of establishing a live export stakeholder group.
4. Briefing of farm organisations and live exporters
Independent Ireland was also planning to have a follow-on meeting with live exporters and farm organisations following its meeting with Irish Ferries to brief them on the outcome of the meeting. This meeting would also be used to finalise a plan of action.
5. Meet with Department of Agriculture
The final step in the immediate proposals to work on was meeting with Department of Agriculture officials. There were a number of components under this proposal. The first component included working with the Department of Agriculture officials to establish workable solutions to increase capacity. The second aspect was reviewing current practices in Ireland to ensure that live exporters could maximise sailings with an example used of Department officials not being available on a Sunday to clear animals for exports.
SHARING OPTIONS