Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I did not realise that. I would not have interrupted so rudely if I had known I had another minute. I think PGIs are an excellent idea but they are about producer groups, not a nationwide development that will be held hostage by processors who completely control the Irish beef industry. I know there have been complaints to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, and the only people who were not investigated were in the beef industry. Farmers were investigated and farmers' groups were investigated, but the processors themselves, bizarrely, were not. I do not know what sort of hold beef processors have on this country but it is substantial and it covers officialdom. PGIs are an excellent idea, as is the quality assurance scheme but all the latter does is empower processors to pay farmers less. It is never about farmers being able to say that they produce a high quality product and should get more money for it, but about processors saying that the bullock, heifer or sheep is a day over a particular age or has too much or too little fat.

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