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

It was positive. I had a two hour meeting with Tesco when we discussed a series of issues, mainly around beef. This was one of the key requests. Until a few weeks ago, the trade for live beef animals was significantly down. Ironically, live cattle exports to Northern Ireland are significantly up this year. The kind of animals we are looking for in the beef trade has been down somewhat. We need Northern buyers in marts, providing competition to get the best prices for animals, and so on, and that has picked up significantly in recent weeks. To be fair to Tesco, it said it was willing to consider this. It is very strict about label accuracy, to make sure that it looks after its consumers, but it recognised that its customers would not have a problem with an Irish label on beef produced to more or less the same standards, North and South on the island of Ireland, as long as there was proper label clarity underneath that. It is up to processors in the North to deliver on that and negotiate with Tesco, which has shown a willingness to be flexible.

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