Bord Bia
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-09
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Martin Kenny (SF), Sligo-Leitrim

I am not in dispute with the Minister in that respect. Nobody is. Nobody is saying that is not the situation. The problem is that credibility and authenticity are also central to people’s confidence and the chair of Bord Bia has lost that confidence because of the situation whereby his companies are not part of Origin Green, a programme that the board he chairs was saying all companies that produce food in Ireland should be part of. It is part of the system we are trying to put in place, yet his company was not part of it.
Furthermore, his company was using beef imported from Brazil, which the European Commission is now saying will not even be allowed into Europe from 1 September. The argument that the chair had was that he could not market his product if he did not use Brazilian beef. Now he will not be able to use Brazilian beef because it is going to be banned. What is going to do now, not market any of the product? Nobody believed that story, and that is the problem. It is about the authenticity of the person at the head of Bord Bia. It is not about the work that Bord Bia does, and the more the Minister keeps referring to the work Bord Bia does, how it is managing, how it is working and the good work it is doing for Irish farmers and Irish agriculture, the more he is avoiding the central point.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-14T01:01:07+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-09