Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Regarding the current difficulties between farmers and processors, the Deputy will appreciate that, ultimately, price and market specification are matters to be determined between purchasers and the sellers of cattle. For obvious reasons it is neither appropriate nor possible for me to intervene directly in setting prices. My Department monitors the kill figures from Irish meat plants and I note that slaughterings of bull beef in the first 11 weeks of 2014, up to 16 March, stood at almost 65,000. That represented an increase of almost 2,000, or 3%, on the figure for the same period last year. In addition, as I outlined, the number of live cattle exported to the end of 9 March was approximately 42,000, up 6% on the figure for last year.

It should be noted that Irish beef prices were 106% of European Union average last year. The average price change in the first ten weeks of this year is a reduction of approximately 1.8%, but it must be remembered that that is a common price that has decreased slightly in the first quarter of the year. Nonetheless, I know and recognise that there is a specific problem in the bull beef sector. Essentially, there is an oversupply of a certain product, which is very much out of spec in terms of what supermarkets are seeking. That is a problem and it has resulted in prices falling well below what farmers would have been expecting to receive for their bull beef.

I have tried to do everything within reason to speak to both the farming organisations and the processing sector. I have ongoing conversations with retailers on a range of issues, including the spec they are seeking. The problem is that if one is producing large animals, bull beef that is 22, 24 and 26 months old, often steaks from these animals are far too big in terms of what retail outlets want. That is the reason retail outlets, particularly those in the United Kingdom, sourcing bull beef are looking for animals aged 16 or 17 months, which in general we are not producing here. We need to learn lessons from this, both at a processing and a farming level, to produce what the market is looking for to make sure we get the maximum price for what we are producing.

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