Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

No, I share in the view that it is welcome that Irish beef exporters can export to the United States. However, the question is whether it is in no way problematic that at present, regardless of whether one likes it, the face of those exports is a man who was in charge of a company that previously was found by a tribunal to have been repackaging meat, meat by-products and offal from all over the world as Irish. Is this not problematic? I draw no inferences that are not there. It is the case that as Minister, Deputy Coveney welcomed the deal, which is the biggest of all the deals that were done. One can think back to 1987, when a previous major deal concluded by this man and his company was welcomed by the Government. Obviously, that turned out to be a disaster in respect of export credit insurance taken on by the taxpayer and the cost of that then landing on the taxpayer.

See this speech in context