ICMSA slam beef processors “shameful pretend sympathy for farmers”

The Chairperson of ICMSA’s Livestock Committee, Michael O Connell, has slammed as “a performance” the contributions given days ago to the Joint Oireachtas Committee yesterday by representatives of MII and said that whoever MII thought they were fooling with their pre-rehearsed answers and expressions of concern, he could assure them that it was not the farmers.

“Just in case, MII thought that they’d got away with it and no-one was able to see through their act, I’d like to assure them that we saw through it from start to finish and that it won’t be fooling the farmers one bit.”

Mr. O’Connell said that beef finishers have been absolutely ‘cleaned’ this spring and that was regardless of the hollow expressions of sympathy and ‘poor mouth’ expressed by the factories’ representatives yesterday. The ICMSA Livestock Chairperson cited a farmer who finished his own suckler-bred bulls and is facing a loss of up to €450/head on these cattle only to have MII dismiss this kind of catastrophic loss as a ‘price correction’.  

“The answers given by MII to the Committee Members shows exactly what the processors think of farmers – if they consider us at all, then it’s as a vague afterthought and a group to be endlessly taken advantage of.  You’d love to know if the people who classified the price collapse this Spring as ‘a market correction’ and who kept referring to beef farmers as having a “few great years” have invested heavily in cattle for feeding?  Does anybody think that they went through the same hardship finishers have faced this spring?   The narrative that cattle have killed 25kg or so heavier this year seems to be complimenting farmers, but this has coming at an exorbitant cost where farmers were waiting three to four weeks to get cattle killed where it was costing €3.50-€4.00 per head per day to feed.  Farmers have had one exceptional year in the past 30 years, so saying that farmers have had ‘great years’ is not just farcical but demonstrably false. The Oireachtas Committee meeting was titled ‘Cattle Kill Reduction and Cattle prices’, but MII did their best to divert if off onto the increase in the cost of energy supplies and work permits for their staff.  But surely farmers are facing the same rise in energy costs proportionately? And if energy costs are such an issue – and with all the processors’ posing and posturing on sustainability – then why not put in renewable energy generation? As I said: I don’t know if they fooled the politicians, but they sure as Hell didn’t fool us.”

Mr. O’Connell stated that the frustration on the ground is unprecedented.  

“Farmers cannot continue to operate with volatility like this, particularly of the scale we’ve seen in the past six months.  This fiction that the farmer is paid what the market returns falls apart as soon as you look at the values of forequarter and hindquarter cuts; hindquarter cut value to the processors had not suffered the same market cut as farmers have.   A cut of circa 89c per kg suffered by the processors from 2025 to 2026 is a long way away from the €1.20/kg farmers prices have suffered over the same period.  How can the cut to beef price be reflective of so-called market conditions if the cut suffered by processors is 30c/kg less than that suffered by farmers?  Farmers are expected to purchase cattle to feed for factories, but processors either can’t – or won’t – give any indication as what may happen in the coming three to four months.  Processors agree a price with a retailer for beef which is tied into a contract but again are either unable – or much more likely, unwilling – to give any indication of price to the farmers from whom they are buying the cattle to fulfil their fixed price contracts. So it’s ‘Guaranteed returns for me, but not for thee’, that’s their motto and it’s not good enough”, said Mr. O’Connell.

The MII desire to see ‘public supports’ for farmers in order to ‘prop up’ farmer incomes, he described as a “shameful admission” on the part of the processors that they are fully aware that their farmer-suppliers are being underpaid and that their future viability is now under real threat.

“Rather than pay the farmers a fair price for their cattle, the factories are calling for State or EU charity to bridge the gap between the minimum price they (the factories) can get away with paying and what it’s going to cost to keep the farmers limping along supplying them with cattle.  While you will struggle to take that statement in, you have MII having the unmitigated cheek to complain about having to compete for cattle in 2025 – which drove up the beef price – without ever once mentioning their own CFUs and the deliberate painstaking efforts to control numbers and drive prices downwards by judicious ‘dipping in’ to their own CFUs. We have suspiciously uniform prices paid by all the factories, week-in and week-out. Thanks be to God for live exports, the only factor they can’t yet control and the only competition option available to Irish farmers”, said Mr. O’Connell.

Mr. O’Connell noted that MII told the Oireachtas Committee that they had spoken to the farm organisations.

“They have never spoken to us, and we have had no direct contact from MII. ICMSA has met with a number of meat processors, entirely at our initiative. While MII are explaining that, can we ask them whether they have any idea where the 40,000 tons of imported beef in 2025 ended up?  Someone must know and farmers – and consumers – deserve an answer.”

The ICMSA Livestock Chairperson concluded by describing MII’s claim to be ‘price takers’ as the funniest remark in a memorable comic performance: “The suggestion that Irish beef processors are ‘price takers’ because they are competing against low-cost international supplies was the funniest statement of them all. And even if it was true – which it isn’t – then on behalf of all farmers I’d like to welcome them to our world and warn them that they’ll find it tough going: We beef finishers have been price takers all our lives.”

Ends       2 June 2026Michael O’Connell, 086-8551015

Chairperson, ICMSA Livestock Committee

Or

Cathal MacCarthy, 087-6168758

ICMSA Press Office