Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In case the Minister is in any doubt, I wish to state clearly that we will work with whatever is put in place. The food ombudsman is something to which he has committed. I hope he does it quickly and I really do hope it works. I still have my doubts. A food ombudsman can only implement Government policy and if that policy is to turn a blind eye to these type of practices by the factories then the food ombudsman can do nothing about it. These practices go back to 2009, a very different time. Many players in the retail and food sectors say they do not make any sense. Nobody goes into a restaurant, requests its best sirloin beef and asks the restaurant to ensure that the beef is 29 months old. Nobody goes into a supermarket and looks at the packaging to see how many movements the cow that produced the beef made. These are just mechanisms put in place to distort the market. I ask again, will the Minister monitor these and analyse the impact they are having on the prices farmers are receiving? If that analysis confirms what I believe, namely, that they are actually having a downward pressure on those prices, will the Minister then look at all mechanisms to ensure we can find a means to undo the damage?

See this speech in context