Beef Sector
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-14
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Martin Kenny (SF), Sligo-Leitrim

I appreciate that the value of products has gone up because prices have gone up. The price that is returned for beef internationally, particularly for higher quality product, has increased over the past number of years. That is because of a reduction in the number of cattle across Europe and many other parts of the world. It is creating that buoyancy in the market. The reality from an Irish perspective is that the amount of beef we produce has actually gone down. We need to look at that. I am not saying why that is. I do not know what the situation is or where we are at here. In the lamb market, we see a similar thing. I have met with people and I know the Minister has met them as well, namely, young farmers who want to get into lamb. Even the factories are asking what the future is going to be because production is going down. We need to be looking at how we are going to maintain that level of production.
The other point I want to get a view from the Minister on is in regard to the beef that is coming into the European Union from Brazil. Some 100,000 tonnes of product was imported, most of it beef, in the last year from Brazil. If the European Union is saying there is a problem with it, why are we waiting until September to do something about it? When it came to implementing the Mercosur trade agreement, they were able to do it provisionally immediately rather than wait. Why do we have to wait for this?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-14/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:56+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-14