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

It is important to bring clarity to this discussion because we have done everything we can to facilitate a new compromise label approach if someone wishes to pursue that course of action. However, that label must come from a processor in Northern Ireland and I cannot force that action. I have made it clear to the Minister, Ms Michelle O'Neill, that we have no problem with that to try to ensure there is a normalisation of the cross-Border trade. Approximately 50,000 animals normally go north from marts in Border counties and along the west of Ireland. Moreover, there has been quite a pick-up in that trade over the past two or three weeks, as anyone who attends marts will have seen, and a strong price is being paid for finishers and store cattle in marts. However, there is an issue in that when there is a lot of meat around, as is the case this year, retailers are much fussier about what they accept. They do not want label ambiguity, whereby consumers look at a labelled product that is produced in the Republic of Ireland and slaughtered in Northern Ireland, that is, the United Kingdom and therefore is not British or Irish but is something in between. I have written to the three UK retailers that buy and sell Irish beef. I have met representatives of Tesco, with whom we had a long meeting on this subject. Tesco is open to compromise in this regard to try to be helpful but there is a responsibility on a processor who is selling into that market to work out with retailers in the United Kingdom what such a compromise label actually would look like in the end.

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