Beef Sector
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-19
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Natasha Newsome Drennan (SF), Carlow-Kilkenny

I understand the Commission has said the three month delay is to give Brazilian farmers an opportunity to get their house in order. I do not know if the Minister saw the joint report by the IFA and the Irish Farmers' Journal on how brazen and widespread drugs are in Brazilian beef farming. For someone like me from a farming background it is shocking. How the Commission could think the use of banned drugs could be brought under control in a matter of months is beyond me. Once these drugs have been injected into a herd that is it. They are not simply going to fade out of the animals' system. The damage is done and let us not forget that there is no proper tagging or traceability of the herds. I hope we do not see the Commission trying to row back on this decision. It has taken Irish and EU farming decades to reach the standards we have today. Three months will not cut it for Brazil.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-28T05:50:46+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-19