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

Martin Heydon (FG), Kildare South

On the Deputy's question regarding the decline in the volume of beef exports to the EU and the UK, there are a few parts to this. It is a dynamic situation. Farmers vote with their feet in terms of the workload and the return they are getting for that work. Some of them change enterprises because they will get a better return for that. The increase in beef prices last year will make some farmers who had stepped back look at beef production again. I am determined to ensure that the good beef price, which increased last year, remains high for them so that they can continue to do that.
The UK will always be a really important market to us. Almost 50% of our beef goes to the UK. Europe, our nearest neighbours after that, is obviously a key market as well. We have worked really hard in my Department to open new markets in third countries, with a particular focus on south-east Asia and beyond. The Deputy dismissed somewhat the early figures I highlighted showing the increase in the value of the return on that, but that is real for farmers because we have pursued the higher value markets. We do not want to be fighting with Brazilian beef on commodity markets around the world, and 90% of our beef that is exported is not. We go for the higher value markets because of our traceability and our Origin Green quality assurance scheme, which farmers and food processors have bought into. That is delivering the real return here and will continue to do so into the future.

---

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