Beef Sector
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-14
============================================================

Martin Kenny (SF), Sligo-Leitrim

I thank the Minister. I understand that and appreciate there is work being done by an awful lot of people across the European Union from the Government here and other governments in Europe, as well as farm and consumer organisations, to look at all of this and to recognise that the product that has been coming in from Brazil is way below standard. The big problem with it all is traceability. There is no traceability whatsoever in Brazil when it comes to the production of beef. A person can buy antibiotics or hormones across the counter and administer them to the animals and there is no traceability as to what they have had. It is open season. I know there have been suggestions that beef is going to come in from particular factories or farms that comply with European standards. The problem is that there is no way of judging or guaranteeing it. I welcome the European Union accepting that point and removing Brazil from the list.
However, I understand that product is still going to come in from Brazil until September. That is a problem that needs to be dealt with. We really need to accept that Irish farming is under pressure and beef production is absolutely vital to the Irish rural economy.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

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