Lack of pork-scare compensation could cost 400 jobs in North
Up to 400 jobs could be under threat if pork producers are not compensated for the contaminated feed scare, one of the North’s largest companies claimed today.
Cookstown Meats is leading calls for a £12.5m (€13.78m) compensation package across the industry after its goods were temporarily stripped from supermarket shelves at the height of the alert.
Producers north of the border are at a massive disadvantage compared to competitors in Ireland because of state aid there, managing director Seamus Carr added.
“It renders (at risk) 300-400 jobs if not the whole viability of the plant because we can’t continue with that unlevel playing field,” he told Stormont’s Agriculture Committee.
He said the owner of Cookstown, Grampian Country Pork, was an international company facing the position in the south where businesses were guaranteed compensation.
Mr Carr highlighted the uncertainty “when a business that is restructuring and they are in an island context where this level of disparity is allowed to happen, for an international company in their position.”
He stressed he was not suggesting that Cookstown could be closed.
There is a compensation scheme in Ireland worth €180m.
He said the industry in the North wants £2m (€2.2m) for product which had to be dumped, although the Health (Michael McGimpsey) and Agriculture ministers didn’t tell producers to destroy products, and the rest for returned food.
Mr Carr said Germany was a particular problem.
“We are rendered uncompetitive because of this disparity, as we would see it, in state aid in an island context,” he added.
“The industry operates on an all-island context. We have the position where our competitors are in a far stronger position.”
Liam McKibben, an under secretary at the North's Department of Agriculture, was asked about the separate problem facing beef farmers who have 7,000 cattle barred from the food chain.
They have been feeding those animals over Christmas without knowing what will happen to them or whether they will receive any money for them, the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU) has said.
Mr McKibben said the Executive was to consider the matter but refused to release details of any compensation being considered.
Committee chairman Tom Elliott said: “DARD have basically washed their hands of this small number of farmers by saying ’we are not going to compensate you... the welfare issues are your problem, basically do what you want’.”
Mr McKibben rejected the suggestion and said Agriculture Minister Michelle Gildernew had advised producers to seek compensation under the arrangements provided by the Irish Government.
“Ministers wrote initially to the south putting pressure on the southern government because the incident happened there,” he added.
“It is appropriate that the cost should be met there rather than be met by the local taxpayers.”
George Savage helped arrange the meeting with pork producers and said it was important compensation be paid.
“The future of the industry here, the pork and beef industry, hinges around that decision,” he added.
“All the ministerial departments are within this building, I can’t understand why they can’t get together and get this sorted out, this has been going on for far too long.”
