Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful to the Chair for allowing me to ask some questions even though I am not a member of the committee. I welcome the representatives of the CCPC. I will focus on beef in my questions. There has been a great deal of discussion. There is substantial dissatisfaction with the CCPC among primary producers. I suppose beef is the issue at the moment. In the past, people were not satisfied with the way the liquid milk market was operating. It is felt that the CCPC is there to look after everyone's interests except those of the primary producer. I do not think the CCPC's role involves setting prices. I have no qualms in that respect. The CCPC definitely has a role to play if there is a monopoly with regard to the setting of prices, for example if everyone is on the one word on a Friday evening with regard to price. Farmers feel that in the milk market, there are significant variations in the prices paid for litres of milk, whereas in the beef market, they could make six or seven phone calls to processors to ascertain this week's beef price, but all they would be doing is wasting the price of the phone calls because they would get the same answer in every case. Farmers on the ground cannot understand how there can be such uniformity of price. According to Bord Bia, all of the factories are sending their beef into different markets and there should be different returns from those markets. Nevertheless, there is complete uniformity of price. We cannot understand how that can happen.

I want to ask a few specific questions. I did not hear all of Senator Mac Lochlainn's questions, but I heard the answers. I think he focused on the same subject. When a major processing plant was sold a couple of years ago, it was purchased by the main player in the industry. If I understood it correctly, the CCPC felt that this did not lessen competition in the trade. I cannot comprehend that answer. A major player was taken out of the industry and its processing capacity was given to a major player in the industry. I would like to see the criteria that were used by the CCPC when it was coming to that conclusion. I cannot understand how taking one player out of the industry and giving its business to the major player in the industry would not lessen competition. It just baffles me. I would like to see the criteria that were used by the CCPC in coming to that answer.

My understanding is that there are four plants operating in this country's rendering business, which deals with the offal in the beef industry.

Three of them are being operated by the same company. Has there been any investigation into that situation and whether price-fixing is happening? Even more so than price-fixing, has there been any examination of whether the kill is being controlled in plants by the rendering business? The company concerned is telling processing plants how many tonnes of offal it will take from them and, in so doing, it is controlling the kill and other processors in the business. It is causing huge disquiet among primary producers that rendering is being used as a weapon to control the business. Has the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission undertaken any investigation into the competitiveness of the rendering business in the Irish beef processing sector?

When the delegates appeared before the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine some months ago, I asked them about the proposed Kepak-Glanbia scheme. The answer I got on that occasion was that the CCPC had looked into the proposal and found it to be anti-competitive but, because it is a small segment of the marketplace, it did not warrant any further investigation. I do not understand that. If we let a scheme like this get a foothold in the industry, the conditions attached to the scheme will become the norm. We saw that happen in the past with bonus schemes that were introduced. If a scheme is anti-competitive, it should not be allowed. I made that point strongly at the meeting of the agriculture committee and I ask today for further clarification. Even though it is a small segment of the marketplace, anti-competitive practices should not be allowed. If farmers were engaging in anti-competitive practice, they would surely be subject to the full rigours of the law. However, two major companies have introduced a scheme under the cloak of offering bonuses for primary producers in the future, but the restrictions attached to the scheme represent a slippery slope. I am not confident that primary producers will benefit from it.