Dairygold pig move sparks clash
IFA deputy president Ruaidhrí Deasy will lead a delegation to meet with Dairygold chief executive Jerry Henchy tomorrow to discuss the decision to end pig slaughtering in Mitchelstown and close a plant in Roscrea, with a loss of 270 jobs.
Mr Henchy told the pig producers in a letter last weekend that the decision to exit slaughtering is irrevocable and there will be no turning back from it. No action aimed at damaging Dairygold in any way will lead to a reversal of the decision. He said Dairygold would continue to be a substantial buyer of Irish pork from other Irish processors who have already indicated a willingness to expand output with the benefit of a greater supply of pigs to their plants.
But IFA Pigs Committee chairman Pat O’Keeffe said nothing other than a commitment to reconsider the hasty decision to close the Galtee slaughtering line would be acceptable to pig producers.
Each one of them and the industry as a whole stand to suffer in an extreme manner if this ill-timed and poorly thought-out decision is not reversed, he said. He said a shortage of slaughter capacity for pigs is almost certain if Dairygold persist with its planned closure of the Galtee plant in Mitchelstown.
There would be a shortfall to slaughter 13,300 pigs a week were Galtee to close today. He accepted that Glanbia has plans to increase its capacity to 25,000 a week from its 2004 average of 19,400, an increase of just 5,600 per week.
But even if these ambitious plans are met before the end of October, which was difficult to see, he said the shortfall in capacity would remain at 7,700 a week.
Mr O’Keeffe said allowing for a continuation of live pig exports to Northern Ireland for slaughter, the proposed exit by Galtee will put the entire pig sector in Ireland in a very compromised and precarious position.
Regarding Dairygold management claims that Ireland needs to scale up to match the efficiency of countries such as Denmark, he said the scale is already there.
Galtee could slaughter 10,000 pigs a week from a weekly pool of 62,000, while the new super plant in Denmark will slaughter 70,000 per week from a pool of 440,000. This is the exact same scale in relative terms.
Regarding producer concerns over the use of imported pigmeat, he said the current protests are not about undermining a particular brand, which was established by producers.
But they are about informing consumers that big businesses are able to exploit a loophole in the current labelling laws to import pigmeat, pack it as well-known brands and pass it off as Irish. This is a separate problem and could easily be rectified by a change in the labelling laws as requested by the Consumer Liaison panel. This would level the playing field for producers and processors and give recognition to those processors who do support Irish producers and Irish jobs.
