Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan was this evening accused of backing big business against farming families over the allocation of EU compensation to the sugar beet industry.
Irish Farmers Association (IFA) President Padraig Walshe said the decision to allocate almost €100 million of the EU sugar restructuring fund to Greencore is one of the most flawed decisions ever presided over by this Government.
Mr Walshe said while growers had lost everything, the minister had transferred €100 million to the balance sheet of Greencore to be divvied out to speculators and foreign investors.
Mr Walshe accused the minister of failing to take into account the windfall profits Greencore shareholders would reap from property development.
"The reality is the minister backed big business against farm families which was the final insult after 80 years of growing beet," he said.
"When the EU Council of Ministers decided last November to give the power to allocate the EU funds, they certainly never intended Minister Coughlan to allocate less than 30 per cent to Irish growers."
IFA Sugar Beet Chairman Peadar Jordan said today's betrayal of farmers added to the catalogue of mismanagement by the minister of the whole sugar reform.
The Government decision to allocate €98 million to Greencore with €47.1 million going to farmers was announced by Minister Coughlan this evening following a Cabinet meeting.
In a statement Minister Coughlan described today's decision as "fair and balanced".
She said: "The success of my negotiating strategy in these difficult negotiations was reflected in the final compensation package worth over €310m, which was way beyond the most optimistic expectations."
The Minister said: "The Government decision was consistent with objective and non discriminatory criteria and would provide a plan with a sound economic balance".
"Given the failure of the interested parties to agree amongst themselves on distribution arrangements, and in view of the diametrically opposed positions they adopted, it was never going to be possible to satisfy everybody," the Minister added.
The €145 million EU sugar industry compensation fund was set up when the closure of Ireland's last sugar factory at Mallow became inevitable.
The IFA has always claimed farmers should get the lion's share of the money but Greencore, which owns Irish Sugar, blamed their factories' closure on the package of reforms agreed for the sugar industry by EU farm ministers last December.
The IFA described the closure of the final factory as a black day for the country's 3,700 growers and Irish farmers.
However, in a statement released this evening Greencore Group plc pointed out that under EU Regulation, the company is entitled to receive 90 per cent of the restructuring fund.
The statement said: "The purpose of the restructuring fund is to compensate for losses directly suffered as a consequence of the closure of the Irish Sugar production facility in Mallow."
We believe that beet growers and contractors are not entitled to any more than 10 per cent of the Restructuring Fund. This is consistent with the recent decree issued by the Italian Government which allocated 4 per cent of the Restructuring Fund to growers and 6 per cent to contractors. A similar allocation has been made in Sweden."
The Board fundamentally disagrees with the basis of the Government's proposal, believes that it is flawed and is contrary to the purpose for which the restructuring aid was established by the EU".
The statement concluded by saying that the company will consider all the options open to it and decide on its course of action in the near future.