The European consumer, and not farmers or Greencore, will be paying the €25 million levy on any sugar produced in Ireland in 2006, it emerged last night.
The drafts of the EU rules covering the closure of plants show that Greencore could apply for the restructuring scheme before the end of January next year and still process beet in 2007.
However, by staying in production in 2006, it would have to contribute to the restructuring fund that will be put in place.
This restructuring amount, now being called a levy, is set at €124.40 per tonne this year, a total of almost €25 million.
If Irish farmers produce beet, the EU support price will fall by over 20 per cent but they will be compensated for this.
As there will be no change in the intervention price paid to the processor, Greencore will also not lose out.
In fact, the company could gain because the consumer will still have to pay the same price in the shops to make up the compensation.
Asked for clarification on the issue yesterday, the Department of Agriculture said it was standing by the statement made by Minister Mary Coughlan on Thursday night.
"There is some confusion here that farmers believe they are being levied. However, we believe Greencore has factored in this levy in the price it will be offering to farmers to grow beet this year," he said.
The spokesman said farmers would receive a total of €121 million over the next seven years in decoupled payments, whether they produced sugar beet or not under the deal negotiated last year and clarified on Thursday.
The spokesman said the problem had been resolved by the Minister now being able to choose the years 2001, 2002 and 2004 as reference years for the decoupled payment.
In addition, he said, farmers would also get €44 million in compensation should sugar beet production cease in Ireland.
He said should Greencore cease production, there would be €145 million compensation on offer and the commission had specified the percentages to go to the other stakeholders, including the workers.