Threat of meat plant shutdown is averted

PROCESSING at the country's meat plants will go ahead as normal today after the threat of a shutdown was averted at the weekend.

Farmers planned to stop supplying cattle and sheep to the factories from this morning in protest at having to meet rendering costs.

The Government stopped subsidising the production and storage of meat and bone meal from March 1 as part of exchequer funding cutbacks.

Renderers insisted they could not continue to operate the service without the subsidy, worth €410 per tonne. Factories also warned they could not carry the extra cost of up to €16 per animal slaughtered, leaving livestock farmers to absorb it.

But the farmers, furious at having to meet other increased charges and penalties, warned they would not bear the charge.

IFA president John Dillon said the decision to target cattle farmers for another round of cutbacks when their incomes are falling was the final straw.

Agriculture Minister Joe Walsh broke the deadlock with a weekend decision to continue paying the subsidy for another three months.

It will be at a reduced rate of €250 per tonne, will cost an estimated €7 million and will apply until the end of May, when exchequer funding will end.

He said the decision was a significant gesture and had been taken against a background of difficult constraints on exchequer spending generally.

The IFA Livestock Committee accepted the deal at a meeting in Portlaoise and lifted the threat to stop supplying cattle and sheep to the factories from today.

Associated Craft Butchers chief executive Pat Brady, welcoming the Minister's decision, said the temporary subsidy will provide a breathing space in which longer term improvements can be made.