IFA plan court action in beet compensation row

The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) confirmed today that it will defend beet growers interests in court over the distribution of EU compensation funds for the reform of the Irish sugar industry.

Greencore has launched a legal challenge against the decision of Agriculture Minister Mary Coughlan to allocate €47.1m of the €145m EU sugar restructuring aid to farmers and contractors.

The IFA said it had instructed senior counsel to represent the interests of 3,700 sugar beet growers.

“Greencore has refused to submit a plan on the basis of the minister’s decision of July 12 on the EU Restructuring Fund,” said IFA president Padraig Walshe. “If this results in the minister’s inability to submit to the EU Commission an application for funding, the IFA on behalf of sugar beet growers will seek full compensation from the parties responsible.”

Greencore, which owns Irish Sugar, has taken High Court proceedings alleging the Government was unlawfully interfering in directing the ways the company should allocate compensation for the end of sugar processing.

Fine Gael’s agriculture spokesman Denis Naughten said the Government had mishandled the share-out of the compensation funds.

“Minister Mary Coughlan was guilty of seriously dodgy logic when she said that Greencore would take her to court and delay the payment of compensation to growers if she did not give them the lion’s share of the sugar compensation deal,” he said.

“If she thought that awarding the company 70% of the available funds would avoid legal action then her tactics have since been proven to be fatally flawed as Greencore has decided to proceed down the legal route in any case.”

Mr Naughten queried why a fair proportion of the compensation could not have been directly allocated to the growers.

“Now farmers have got the worst end of both elements of the compensation deal. They are to get a small share-out of the compensation, the payment of which will be delayed by this court challenge. Again the Minister has failed beet growers and Irish Agriculture,” he said.

In early July, the Government announced it was awarding €98m to Greencore from the restructuring fund with directions €28.4m was to cover employee redundancy payments. It said €20m was to go towards covering the demolition of the factories, and €50m for pension fund requirements and other payments.

The country’s last surviving sugar processing plant in Co Cork closed earlier this year.

Greencore blamed the closure on the package of reforms agreed for the sugar industry by EU farm Ministers.