Many in Ireland’s key pig-producing region are detecting a game of brinkmanship over their calls for compensation
MITCHELSTOWN MAY well have been decked out in its Christmas finery yesterday with lights strung across Cork Street and a huge fir tree in the square, but the mood matched the gloomy grey clouds that surrounded the Galtee mountains.
The pigmeat crisis has hit home. True, it may not be impacting on the town as dramatically as it would have when now closed Galtee Meats was in its prime and employing hundreds and Mitchelstown was synonymous with the Irish bacon industry. But its effects are nonetheless real and significant.
Among those at the front line and feeling the implications of the Government decision to recall all Irish pigmeat is Mervyn Hodgins who set up business in 1996 producing sausages and puddings. He is now the largest pigmeat processor in the area.
“We’re processing on a skeleton scale using imported pork – we have 25 full-time staff but some people have taken holidays, others taken leave without pay and we’re only doing about one-fifth of our normal day’s production,” Mr Hodgins said.
“We have enough for today’s production. We got imported pigmeat from Holland on Sunday when we heard about the crisis on Saturday but, after today, we don’t have any more and we won’t have any production tomorrow or for the foreseeable future until we get more pork.”
Mr Hodgins noted north Cork remains the largest pig-producing area in the country, with some of the country’s biggest pig farmers located there.
He describes the situation as “devastating for the town of Mitchelstown”.
It is a view shared by publican and Mitchelstown Business Association public relations officer Tony Lewis, who said that people working in the industry, both pig farmers and their staff, were hugely frustrated over the standoff between the Government and processors over compensation.
“Jobswise, it’s not on the same scale as the Galtee closure. But it’s still significant, especially for pig producers involved and the people they employ.
“Everybody is in shock about this and people are apprehensive because no one can quantify what the consumer response will be.
“I was talking to people directly involved – a pig farmer and some workers – and they were very angry at this brinkmanship between the Government and the processors over compensation. And they want it sorted out immediately so they can get Irish pork back on the shelf.
“People around here are very angry at what they see is bad leadership from the Government – they’re dithering and duthering.
“And there’s brinkmanship going on over compensation with the processors while the industry is on its knees and jobs could be lost.”
At Hanleys on Lower Cork Street, butcher Michael Maher was busy trimming away some fat from a lamb carcass before preparing some lean cuts for a customer, as sales of lamb and beef grow in the vacuum left by the withdrawal of all pork and bacon products.
“People are scared more than anything else. They are being drip-fed information about the whole situation and they don’t know enough. They are confused and they have questions.
“They feel the Government don’t seem to have any answers.”
