Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 12 February 2019
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine
Live Exports: Discussion
Mr. Seamus Scallan:
Yes. I am also talking about the likes of ICOS sitting down with us because it has the market system and people from Bord Bia.
To respond to one of the questions asked a moment ago, we do not get a fair crack of the whip with Bord Bia in terms of exports. It is there for the meat industry, not the export industry. We pay Bord Bia a weekly levy of €1.90 per animal that leaves. It should try to bring people in from the Balkans, Poland and other such countries into Ireland or bring the right people out to see where we can go ahead with this. We need to get all these people sitting down together. We have never got the exporters to sit down together. Beef Plan is trying to put together a forum and represent exporters, speak on our behalf and so on. The aim is to form an association.