Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

1606. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of sheep carcasses imported into meat plants from Northern Ireland on a monthly basis in the years 2010 to 2016 and to date in 2017. [26860/17]

Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

1607. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the number of sheep carcasses imported into meat plants from Great Britain on a monthly basis in each of the years 2010 to 2016 and to date 2017. [26861/17]

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 1607 and 1606 together.

Figures provided to my Department by the Central Statistics Office show that the following quantities of sheep and lamb carcasses and half carcasses were imported to Ireland annually in the period 2010 – 2017:

The available data does not give a breakdown regarding what proportion of these were for retail or further processing, nor is a monthly breakdown available.

Typically, imports into Ireland are made up of lower value manufacturing product or carcass sheep meat, which undergoes further processing by Irish companies before re-export. Whilst Ireland is of course a net exporter of sheep meat, imports of these products make an important contribution to the overall output of the sectors nationally and constitute a necessary component of the overall trade flows.

These figures represent a very small quantity of the overall sheep meat processed in Irish plants. For example in 2016 we exported 49,000 tonnes of sheep meat.