Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the witnesses from various organisations for attending to discuss this very important issue. The Chairman summed up the problem very well when he broke it into four different parts. There is major concern that individual farmers who sold to TLT and have not been paid, will get caught. There is a major concern that our marts find themselves in a difficult financial situation. Ultimately as outlined, the preferential creditors, whoever they are, will be key.

In the longer term there is very big concern over the loss of competition in the cattle and sheep sectors. The export of live weanlings to Italy had been a very important aspect of our beef trade and had a positive impact on the prices our factories were paying due to demand. Any break in a link of that chain is of concern. We need some analysis of how this happened and how TLT was run. We need to know if TLT made any large capital investments prior to the receivership that would have put pressure on its cashflow. If so were those capital investments in this jurisdiction? What level of follow up is being done? There may be a case for the committee to engage with the receivers. I believe we should write to them following today's meeting.