Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We are all aware of the huge amounts of Irish beef that cross the channel to Britain. I have been speaking to people in the industry, in particular those working in the processing factories, so I know the same processors that own factories here own factories in the UK. Is there a situation where, rather than bringing meat across, they will bring the cattle across and do the processing over there? Many of the workers they have employed are transient because it is not like the past. When I was growing up, many people worked in meat factories and went around wearing white aprons, but none of them work in meat factories anymore. There are very few Irish people working in them and most of the people working in the meat factories are Brazilians or from other countries because it is a low wage sector. The danger is the processors could move everything, lock, stock and barrel, across the water and bring the cattle across to avoid these tariffs. That would be very detrimental for a whole sector of our meat industry and for the spin-off it has in the economies where factories exist. We need to arrive at a situation where we can get certainty, not just for the farmer but also for the people involved in the industry, to make sure we do not see the detrimental effects of these tariffs on the entire industry.

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