Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

To suggest that the powers that are proposed to be given to the Minister and his successors to make regulations requiring transparency in the food chain is already covered in this Bill is patently incorrect. Where does the Minister or the regulator have the power to require beef processors to provide data on the amount of feedlot cattle that are being killed? That has an important impact on pricing. They are used to push down prices. That is why they control so many feedlots that were previously owned or controlled by farmers who were driven out of business by those very processors. The power of these meat processors is not unique to Ireland. It is the same as the power of the meatpackers in the United States. The reporting requirements in this Bill are taken pretty much from the USDA law P.L. 106-78 which was passed by Congress on 22 October 1999. The meatpackers in America were no more happy with this proposal than the meat processors here would be but the provisions have withstood their various legal challenges and are being implemented. I am not saying the system in America is perfect, but it is there.

The only powers the regulator will have in what the Minister proposes is to collect, analyse and regularly publish reports on price and market data relating to the agricultural and food supply chain and generally in relation to the agricultural and food sector in the State, but the problem is there are no market data on the impact of feedlots. There are no market data on the requirements of supermarkets around age and the impact of the 30-month rule. There are none. There are no data whatsoever on the price processors are paid by retailers so they both have a line to say to angry farmers, who are justifiably angry. That may be less so during the lifetime of this Dáil than in the previous Dáil, but I fear in future Dáileanna, as it is cyclical, there will be anger again. The retailers and the processors will point to each other and say, “There is the bad guy. There is the place you need to be protesting outside, not here, because I am not making any money out of this. I might have managed to buy the building the Department of Health is in but I never made anything out of the business.” It is laughable, and the Minister talks about historic. He championed this in opposition. He does have an historic opportunity to bring in powers to provide for transparency in the food chain but the failure to do that is historic and lamentable. I urge him to reconsider his position.

See this speech in context