Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

I met farmers and people involved in all the farming organisations who told me that there are buyers in Britain anxious to purchase Irish cattle. We have taken up the various issues raised. Bord Bia and our veterinary services have been in contact with the Chief Veterinary Officer in Britain.

Irish exporters encounter two difficulties in Britain, the veterinary issues concerning the post-import conditions imposed by the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Development, and technical beef labelling issues surrounding the finished beef product and other beef industry complications. Over the past few weeks and earlier I met ICOS in its capacity as the umbrella body for the marts organisations and outlined what we had been doing to remove the blockages from the system. My officials have worked actively with the representative groups here and with the veterinary people in Britain.

We have involved Bord Bia on the beef labelling scheme and I have asked it to offer advice and to find out how we can overcome the labelling difficulty for cattle born in Ireland but fattened and slaughtered in the UK. They will not get a British quality assurance mark. Bord Bia has worked with the industry and has put a proposal for a beef quality assurance scheme to include cattle for export. The scheme would draw on data from the beef quality assurance and the beef suckler welfare schemes and other requirements at export level and incorporate auditing of participants including unannounced audits to verify compliance. Such a scheme could enable Irish born animals to access higher value market channels in the destination country. Bord Bia has communicated this proposal to the industry. The initial feedback from the industry and from a live exporter has been positive. The scheme would have to meet with the approval of buyers in the British market. We need access to that market without confusion about the labelling of the product.

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