News that EU agriculture ministers had agreed a deal which will see a 36 per cent reduction in sugar beet prices met with a grim reception from workers and business interests in Mallow yesterday. They fear the deal will lead to the closure of the local sugar beet plant.
While Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan was pledging that the deal will guarantee sugar beet production for two more years, the warning from the IFA that it will mean the immediate end of the Irish sugar beet industry was worrying workers.
Greencore Sugar worker director and Mallow Siptu branch secretary Liam Lucey was far from optimistic. Workers had been keeping their "fingers crossed" that a deal would be done to ensure survival. "Over the past year and a half the workers have made huge sacrifices and accepted radical changes so that the plant would become more efficient; and we can now compete with any plant in Europe but we can't survive if the farmers say they are not growing beet," he said.
Mr Lucey pointed out that the average age of workers at the plant - which The Irish Times understands employs 140 permanent and 80 seasonal staff - is 51, and many of those workers will have great difficulty obtaining alternative employment.
Former president of Mallow Chamber of Commerce Frank Nyhan said the jobs at the plant were traditionally well paid. The deal agreed in Brussels made no mention of compensation for the workers, so they would bear the main brunt of the closure.
However, Mr Nyhan pointed out that closure would have a serious knock-on effect on the Mallow economy, as the plant provided valuable part-time employment for many small farmers and was a particularly serious blow in the wake of other agri-food closures.
The net effect of the closure of the sugar beet factory would be a loss of €8 million a year in wages going into the local economy.
"Two years ago the Government promised that Bord Fáilte would relocate to Mallow - if they want to do one thing for the town, they could do that tomorrow - it would lead to an influx of 100 jobs and it would at least cushion the blow for the retail sector," Mr Nyhan said.
North Cork Enterprise Board chief executive Richie Holohan said that, with the threatened closure of the sugar beet plant on top of job losses at Nestle and Dairygold, Mallow was in danger of becoming a commuter town for Cork city without any productive industry of its own.
Labour Cllr Seán Sherlock called on the Government to examine the possibility of the Mallow plant being used to produce biofuel.