Pork fund legislation rushed into Dáil

AGRICULTURE Minister Brendan Smith has rushed legislation into the Dáil to release €50 million to compensate processors affected by this month’s recall of pork products.

It is the first installment of an estimated payout of €180m to subsidise the industry.

The bill was criticised by opposition parties who said the summary lacked any detail of who would get the money, how it would be managed and how much more will be required.

Fine Gael’s Michael Creed said he agreed with the intention of the package but could not support the spending of large amounts of taxpayers’ money on a “two paragraph” explanation.

Food Minister Trevor Sargent said there had not been time to flesh out the plan any further because money had to be released quickly.

He said this fund would be available to primary and secondary processors.

“We are caught between a rock and a hard place,” he said.

Mr Smith said 30,000 tonnes of pig meat would have to be destroyed but this would have to be done in facilities separate from ordinary slaughtering processes.

He said he also expected money to be released from a fund set up by the European Commission.

Sean Sherlock of Labour said he had difficulty with how the bill was presented. “I have serious reservations about doing this because of the sheer lack of detail.”

Mr Sherlock said he wanted to know who had been involved in the negotiations and what would be the criteria used to decide who received money.

Meanwhile, the joint Oireachtas committee on agriculture, fisheries and food has decided to carry out an examination of the circumstances which led to the recent contamination of Irish pork products.

The committee will also consider the level to which the industry has been affected and how the sector should progress from here.