‘Huge opportunities on horizon for dairy industry’

By Conor Kane

Friday, February 10, 2012

Huge opportunities are on the horizon for the Irish dairy industry, according to Glanbia group managing director John Moloney.

Mr Moloney, yesterday told a Waterford Chamber conference at the Tower Hotel, that although one in seven Irish jobs are now linked to the agri-food sector, this can grow even more in the coming years.

He said Ireland has an export-centric economy, and added the capability of producers and suppliers to drive this market has already been proven and will enable it to compete for a slice of the growing global market for dairy products.

"Huge opportunities are on the horizon for the Irish dairy industry, the abolition of the milk quota in 2015 and the low-cost and grass-based production along with it being an export-centric industry are all huge advantages for the Irish dairy industry."

He pointed out that, of the €25bn turnover in the dairy sector, 80% stays in the Irish economy. "There are currently one in seven jobs linked to the Irish agri-food industry and this has potential to grow."

Brendan Howlin, public expenditure minister also spoke at the event. He told the conference broadening the tax base was necessary as part of the programmes agreed with the EC/ECB/IMF troika.

"The notion of the household charge, for example, which is causing real concern to people, I understand — that’s a requirement under the agreement signed up to by the previous administration, approved by Dáil Éireann under the programme.

"We’ve said that the introduction of the charge this year was crude in as much as it’s a flat charge and it’s going to be refined into a better and fairer charge."

Mr Howlin was met on arrival at the Tower Hotel by a group of about 15 people who were protesting against the household charge and the septic tank registration charge.

There is "no magic solution," to paying our bills, the minister told reporters.

"Anybody who can peddle the notion that there is a soft or easy solution to the economic woes that this Government inherited is deluding the people.

The people above all else, as I discovered at the last election, want to be told the truth and this Government will tell them the truth, we will map out and have mapped out a path to economic sovereignty, and we will get there and I think at the end of the day this Government will be rewarded by the electorate when we restore our economy."

He said some opposition TDs are engaging in "Darby O’Gill economics" and accused Socialist party TD Joe Higgins of being "caught in a timewarp" for the last 40 years.

He said: "Very bad decisions were made in this economy in recent years, particularly the disastrous decision to socialise the bad debts of banks, but that was done and that money is now due and we have to engage in a constructive way with those we depend on to pay our day-to-day expenses to get a better deal."

This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Friday, February 10, 2012