Coveney warns of threat to Irish beef industry

IRELAND’S BEEF industry could be “sacrificed” to allow more South American beef into the EU for access to their markets for sectors such as European financial services and the German motor industry, Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney has warned.

Mr Coveney said the EU’s bilateral trade talks with the Mercosur countries of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay “represent an extraordinary threat to the Irish beef industry”.

In his first Dáil question time as Minister for Agriculture, Mr Coveney said he would raise the issue today at an EU agriculture ministers’ meeting. He said that at his first EU council meeting last month, “I made it very clear that it makes absolutely no sense for many reasons to allow for a very large quota of increased beef trade coming into the European Union to displace beef that is produced in countries such as Ireland”.

He added that “we produce beef with the lowest carbon footprint in the world because we have a grass-based system, while most of the beef produced in South America is from a much more intensive system with a much higher methane [carbon] footprint”, which is “totally contrary to what the EU is trying to do” on climate change.

It also made no sense from a food security point of view “because Ireland produces beef cattle at a standard that is matched nowhere else in the world as far as I am concerned from the point of view of animal husbandry, inputs and traceability. European consumers can rest assured when they purchase and eat Irish meat products.

“I cannot see any sense in the EU simply replacing Irish meat. We export 80 per cent of everything we produce. Most other beef industries feel threatened by Mercosur for domestic reasons but we export to other European countries.”

The Minister said that “in essence” the European “beef sector would be sacrificed to allow European financial services and other product services to access South American markets, primarily Argentina and Brazil. We cannot allow this.” He had met his Spanish and French counterparts, “who have similar concerns”, and they were “in the process of building an alliance to try to prevent a potential catastrophe”.

He said “we cannot allow a political deal to be done that will sacrifice our industry to allow European financial services, motor cars from Germany or whatever the industry may be to access markets in South America”.

Áine Collins (FG, Cork North-West) asked if there were possible benefits for Ireland in the trade talks and the Minister said they were not against a world trade deal as Ireland had many industries but “we cannot allow an agreement to be reached between the EU and any other collection of countries that sacrifices an industry of fundamental importance to the Irish economy”.

Fianna Fáil agriculture spokesman Michael Moynihan asked if the issue was a priority at today’s EU Council meeting. Mr Coveney said it would come under “any other business” because “that is the only way to get a specific issue such as this on the agenda”.