Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I missed both of the presentations but I have read through them. The so-called beef crisis seems to me only an extension of where we have been for the past number of years. It may have been presented as a crisis in recent times but it is not new to us. We mainly deal with suckler farming in the part of the world I come from and people have been in this position for quite some time. The prices they are receiving for their animals is so poor that many are taking the option to leave farming. That is a big problem and will be so in the future.

I want to raise a couple of issues about some of the rules that have been put in place, particularly the four movement rule. All farming organisations need to get around that and call it for what it is - simply a means of reducing the price. It is a price control measure by the processors. There are also rules on age limits that refer to under 30 months, under 24 months and so on, which are simply price reduction mechanisms. There may have been some legitimacy to them some time ago when there were problems with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE, and other things but those days are long gone. I know nobody who knows anything about the age of a piece of meat before buying it. I know nobody in any processing facility who worries about the grade of animal the meat is coming from when filling an order. The order is filled by U-grade meat or whatever other grade is available and the price is the same regardless of where the animal came from in the beginning.

We need to recognise there are issues that must be dealt with. Both of the submissions from our guests mentioned that we have an opportunity for remodelling. Sometimes a crisis is a time for action and it brings concentrated minds together to try to resolve a situation. This is a crisis that should not be let go after putting a sticking plaster on it because things will improve a little bit and appear to be getting better, everyone will ease off, and we will end up back in the same place in a couple of years time.

This is an opportunity to take real action and consider taking the beef industry in a different direction. There are opportunities for lower intensity, higher nature farming for a higher price. Mr. Jim Power was before this committee a couple of years ago talking about a study he had done about Brexit and the opportunities and problems it would present. I asked him at that time about the marketing of beef. Irish beef was being marketed on a par with beef from everywhere else in the world. We were working in a world market. He concurred with me, as would anyone else who is logical, that the product we produce in Ireland is unique. These are grass-fed, free-roaming animals, from a family farm and traceable from farm to fork. Those four things alone, without even talking about the nature value and green image of Ireland across the world, offer an opportunity to put Irish beef, lamb and meat products in general into a different place. We need to market them as such. That may require to occur over a period of time and the challenge to the industry and to everyone is to reduce the amount we produce for a while, set ourselves a higher standard, go for the top shelf and the premium product to demand a higher price. That is the solution but it will require all parties to the industry playing together, working together and coming up with a plan. The plan should be more than a sticking plaster. It should be a plan to move the industry to a different place such as that occupied by Irish dairy. That is the kind of direction we need to be going with Irish beef.

A part of the submission from the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association, ICSA, referred to a sum of €5 per kilo. I agree that is the kind of price we need to see Irish beef getting for the primary producer from the factory. It needs to be getting at least €5 per kilo. We could then get to a place where beef farming is sustainable in the long term. If that does not happen and we just put a sticking plaster on the problem, things will return to where they were before and we will continue to have these problems.

There are issues to do with competition. We will meet industry representatives later to talk about how all of that works and whether competition exists or not. New players coming into the market certainly find big problems in getting rid of their offal and there are problems about how that is structured. That comes into play where the Government, Department and the Minister will need to have a firmer hand on how things are controlled in that part of the industry.

Practices there need a very firm hand as we move forward. That is the challenge to everyone around the table from all the farming organisations and the industry itself. It is in everyone's interests for us to have not just a solvent beef sector but a prosperous one. It is in the interests of the processors, retailers and the consumer. It is in everyone's interest that we have a prosperous beef sector. If we are to decide that this is what we want to do, we all have to work together to make that happen but it will require some heads being cracked together because there are people who do not want that. I feel there is a large sector out there - certainly the supermarket sector and perhaps parts of the processing sector - that want to continue as they are and maintain the status quo. This dip in what has been an ongoing crisis is an opportunity to say that we should take this and deal properly with it.