Greencore has not ruled out the possibility of a legal challenge to the Government's decision to award it €98 million from the EU's €145 million sugar restructuring fund.
In a statement following Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan's announcement that she was giving €40 million to growers, and €7 million to contractors, the company said that they should only have received 10 per cent of the fund.
"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," said the Greencore statement.
"The board will protect the legitimate interests of its shareholders and will act to preserve the company's entitlement.
"The board will consider the options open to it and will decide on and pursue a definitive course of action in due course," it concluded.
Asked if this could include a legal challenge, a company spokesman said he could not speculate but nothing should be ruled out.
The Minister's decision was greeted with complete negativity politically and with anger from the farming groups representing the 3,700 beet growers.
President of the Irish Farmers' Association Pádraig Walshe said he was outraged at the Government's decision "to back big business rather than farm families".
"The Government is trying to dress this up that they are not giving money to Greencore but they are picking up bills that Greencore were legally obliged to pay and in doing so are favouring big business over farm families," he said.
"The farmers here have lost everything. Sugar beet was the cornerstone of the tillage industry and over half of what they earned came from the beet industry. They have lost all.
"From this they will be getting less than €10,000 per farmer and they had no choice because Greencore, not the farmers, shut the industry down," Mr Walshe said.
Ms Coughlan said the allocation to Greencore included €28.4 million to cover employee redundancy payments, €12.8 million to cover pension fund maturity, training and outsourcing, €37 million to meet employee pension fund requirements and €20 million to cover the environment and demolition of the sugar factories.
"The Government's view is that this money must be made available to the pensioners and the workers and on the environmental elements of dismantling the plant," she said.
The company had put the cost of closure at €600 million and the IFA had sought €106 million, so independent advice had to be sought.
Farmer growers, she said, would receive in all €91.1 million from this fund and a restructuring funding of €44 million and in addition would receive €123 million in Single Farm Payments which would be paid into the future.
Fine Gael agriculture and food spokesman Denis Naughten described the Government allocation of EU compensation for the sugar industry as "a slap in the face" for growers.
He said the 900 acre land bank available to Greencore for development is a significant asset which should have been taken into account when allocating this compensation.
Labour Party spokeswoman on agriculture Mary Upton has accused the Minister of capitulating completely to the demands of business.
Green Party agriculture spokeswoman Mary White described the farmer allocation as hugely inadequate and Martin Ferris, Sinn Féin's agriculture spokesman said the payout to Greencore was "an absolute disgrace".