Meat Industry Ireland’s (MII) call for publicly-funded supports for beef producers was a “shameful admission” that farmers were being “underpaid” for cattle and a cheeky appeal for “State or EU charity”, the ICMSA has claimed.

In a scathing riposte to the contributions of MII’s Philip Carroll and Dale Crammond at this week’s Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, the ICMSA flatly rejected their expressions of sympathy and concern for beef farmers as “hollow”.

“The answers given by MII to the committee members shows exactly what the processors think of farmers,” said Michael O’Connell, chair of ICMSA’s livestock committee.

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“Rather than pay the farmers a fair price for their cattle, the factories are calling for State or EU charity to bridge the gap between the minimum price they, the factories, can get away with paying and what it’s going to cost to keep the farmers limping along,” O’Connell maintained.

The fact that the MII representatives had “the unmitigated cheek” to complain about having to compete with live exporters for cattle in 2025 illustrated how out of touch the processors are with regard to the plight of ordinary beef farmers, the ICMSA representative said.

“You’d love to know if the people who classified the price collapse this spring as ‘a market correction’ and who kept referring to beef farmers as having a ‘few great years’ have ever invested heavily in cattle for feeding?” he asked.

Beef finishers had been “absolutely cleaned” this spring, O’Connell said. He cited a farmer who finished his own suckler-bred bulls and is facing a loss of up to €450/head on these cattle compared to last year.

“Farmers have had one exceptional year in the past 30 years, so saying that farmers have had ‘great years’ is not just farcical but demonstrably false,” O’Connell said.

The ICMSA representative rejected MII’s assertion that farmers were paid what the market delivered.

“This fiction that the farmer is paid what the market returns falls apart as soon as you look at the values of forequarter and hindquarter cuts; hindquarter cut value to the processors had not suffered the same market cut as farmers have.

“A cut of circa 89c per kg suffered by the processors from 2025 to 2026 is a long way away from the €1.20/kg farmers’ prices have suffered over the same period,” O’Connell maintained.

O’Connell took issue with a claim made by the MII representatives that they had spoken to the farm organisations.

“They have never spoken to us, and we have had no direct contact from MII. ICMSA has met with a number of meat processors, entirely at our initiative. While MII are explaining that, can we ask them whether they have any idea where the 40,000 tons of imported beef in 2025 ended up? Someone must know and farmers - and consumers - deserve an answer.”

Meanwhile, the ICMSA representative described MII’s claim to be price takers as the “funniest remark” from “a memorable comic performance”.

“The suggestion that Irish beef processors are ‘price takers’ because they are competing against low-cost international supplies was the funniest statement of them all,” O’Connell said.

“And even if it was true – which it isn’t – then on behalf of all farmers I’d like to welcome them to our world and warn them that they’ll find it tough going: We beef finishers have been price takers all our lives.”