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

While obviously I welcome all questions here, the Deputy is trying to infer something I do not think is relevant or exists. First, we were in the United States last week and visited New York, Washington and Boston over three days. Practically the entire beef industry was out there and it was not just ABP Foods but also was Kepak, Dawn Meats, Slaney Meats, Foyle Food Group and multiple others. They all were doing deals, which is what they were there for, namely, to meet potential customers. For the first time in 16 years, Ireland is able to sell a high-quality premium product into the largest beef market in the world. In total, 11 million tonnes of beef are consumed in the United States each year. The average American eats twice the volume of beef eaten by the average European each year. ABP Food Group is the largest beef processor in Ireland and Britain and from my experience, it runs a pretty good show. It has modern plants, kills a lot of cattle and it is not a surprise that the largest beef processor in Ireland was putting together a partnership with the largest food distributor in the United States, Sysco Corporation. Incidentally, that is a fantastic company which, a number of years ago, partnered and acquired Pallas Foods and there are great people involved in that company, many of whom are Irish. This partnership should be worth approximately €15 million per year in terms of purchasing Irish beef and is a highly positive news story. I will not allow and have not allowed personalities or history with regard to names, companies or anything to get in the way of what is a positive story for the food industry. ABP Food Group did a great job last week and Paul Finnerty was out there. The other big companies also did a great job last week. It was a universally positive three days in both of those big Irish cities in the United States. In my view, it will help to put positive momentum into beef prices in Ireland as one moves into the rest of the year and what has been raised here is something of a distraction.

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