€50m invested in beef and sheep meat

A €50 million investment aid package for the beef and sheep meat processing sectors was launched yesterday by Agriculture and Food Minister Mary Coughlan.

The initiative, funded by the Government under the National Development Plan 2007-2013, will be managed by Enterprise Ireland on behalf of the Department of Agriculture and Food and should trigger €120 million worth of investments.

Beef and sheepmeat processing have a combined annual turnover of some €3 billion, with exports of €2 billion in 2006.