Minister ‘failed to protect’ Greencore’s potential
Mr Rabbitte accused Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan of giving a partial and misleading account this week of her role in the dismantling of the Irish sugar industry and the agreement of an ‘extraordinarily generous’ compensation package for Greencore.
He said the minister has exceptional powers available to her under the Articles of Association of Greencore and as the holder of a ‘golden share’ in the company she should have protected the assets of the company from falling into the hands of property speculators.
He said the minister had failed to point out that as the government is a major shareholder in Greencore she has power under Greencore’s Articles of Association to veto any proposal for the sale of its land at Carlow and Mallow and to veto the acquisition of more than 15% of the shares in Greencore by any individual shareholder.
Minister Coughlan would have to give her prior consent in writing to any proposal by Greencore for the ‘sale, transfer or disposal’ of its sugar quota, he said.
“So, when Greencore announced last March that it was voluntarily ‘renouncing’ its quota and exiting the sugar processing industry that... could not have happened without the minister’s written consent,” he said.
Mr Rabbitte said the minister’s failure to implement her powers through the government stakehold in the company cut off the option for either the Mallow or Carlow factories to diversify into the production of alternative forms of energy.
“Yet this week’s newspapers are full of the story that a major property developer is amassing a sizeable shareholding in Greencore — and not because he has any interest in what are now Greencore’s main activities, like making sandwiches in Nottinghamshire. He has his eye on the company’s property portfolio and, specifically, on the sites at Mallow and Carlow,” Mr Rabbitte said.
The Government said it would not be commenting on the remarks.
Separately, an agriculture department spokesman has confirmed that the minister has written to Greencore chief executiveDavid Dilger yesterday clearly setting out the Government’s position in relation to the recommendations it wants included in the company’s restructuring plan.
That plan must include all the criteria she seeks, including the 40m allocated to farmers. It has to be passed by Government before it is sent to the EU which will then release the money.
Meanwhile yesterday’s planned meeting of the National Implementation Body to discuss the impasse over redundancy pay for Greencore workers, past and present, was postponed at the last minute until next week.
Pat Guilfoyle of the TEEU claimed that the delay was requested by Greencore because David Dilger wished to be present to hear the deliberations. Greencore made no comment.
