Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

If the yardstick by which the Deputy measures the success or failure of the beef forum is in its capacity to deliver price, it is inevitable it will fail because the forum is not a price-fixing mechanism. By law we are specifically excluded from considering price. The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has advised the Department that it has no function in that regard. However, there are many other things that forum can do and achieve, one of which is building such a collaborative approach. I look forward to a day when all the stakeholders will engage in that context. The problem currently, on which the Deputy has touched, is the position of the beef farmer in terms of being a price taker as a stand-alone supplier.

The benefit which producer organisations can bring is to give the supplier more power. It will make the supplier more efficient in the case of groups which are purchasing inputs etc. and it will also give him or her power when negotiating specification and supply on the basis of prices. That is missing from the architecture but it is very much part of the architecture of other countries.

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