Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

If the Tánaiste or I go to buy a car today and visit three different garages that sell the same car new, we will get a different price. If he looks at the television night after night, each of the different stores that sell food will be able to tell him how much he saves.

Funnily enough, however, it has been brought to my attention by individual farmers that, in January of this year, the beef price was €4 per kilo. In February, all of a sudden it dropped to €3.70 while the markets in Europe did not show a deterioration.

In fairness to the Irish Farmers' Journal, every week it has printed prices publicly, be they from the likes of Kepak, ABP Food Group, Meadow Meats, Charleville or Liffey Meats. Sixteen different factories, to name but a few, are printed in terms of price every week. Funnily enough, however, the same price is there for each and every one of them. As they say in rural Ireland, there is not a breadth of a hair between them, ironically enough, even though meat is going to different parts and different contracts, be it in Ireland or Europe. Drilling down into this very good information, especially around 7 February 2021, it shows heifers were quoted at €3.75 and cows at €2.90. Drilling down more, it is seen that in certain parts of the country, especially in the south, one factory ended up on the price of €4.48. A person does not have to be a mathematician to take out all the bonuses and see that the price would have to be around €4 to €4.10. Ironically enough, however, it has been stated to me from information I received that beef feedlots are what brought in a large amount of cattle that week. It appears, and I am saying it appears, that a small farmer will get one price but a person on a contract or who is a big operator will get a second price.

This needs to be investigated. The Government needs to do something about this. From talking to the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, all it will say is that it is concerned about the consumer. The farmer is the person who produces the goods, however. At the moment, the farmer is a price-taker. In 2019, the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, stated that it needed a full investigation. We need to bring in a regulator with teeth but also with powers to go in and take the computers and data. We are not accusing anybody of anything. What we are hearing on the ground, however, which generally is not too far wrong, is that something is amiss with what is going on in the beef sector. Will the Tánaiste work with the other parties to do this for the sake of agriculture and of the farmers?

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