Beef protestors want Minister Creed's Tullamore Show invitation cancelled
Protestors are calling on the organisers of this weekend’s Tullamore Show in Co Offaly, to withdraw its invitation to Agriculture Minister Michael Creed over an ongoing dispute over the price of beef paid to farmers.
The demand has come as 24-hour pickets continued at beef factories around the country in protest over prices paid to farmers.
The Beef Plan Movement says farmers receive just 20% of what a customer pays for beef, with the retailer and processor receiving 51% and 29%.
The organisation says prices paid to farmers are below their production costs, and have called on the minister to intervene and chair discussions at addressing their concerns.
Protestors picketing the ABP Food Group factory in Bandon — just beyond the border of Mr Creed’s Cork North West Constituency — were yesterday critical of what they claimed was a lack of action on his part.
“Michael Creed, our minister for agriculture is gone missing. Where is he? I mean, this is the biggest native industry in the country and he can’t get off his ass and do something,” said Ger Dineen, vice-chair of the Beef Plan Movement in Cork at the picket line.
Beef farmer Helen O’Sullivan, secretary of the local group, has been ever-present at the picket for almost two weeks now.
“This is my 11th day, and I’ve stayed here for four nights, the first three nights in a row. I’ve been coming back and forth every day then, but I stayed another one or two nights after that. I live about an hour away in Bantry so it’s a fair trip back and forth,” she said.
“It’s not easy. I mean, sure you’d be wrecked. We’re absolutely exhausted, everyone here and we don’t want to be here. Our whole farming thing is put on hold. So it’s not easy.
“Sleeping in the back of a jeep is not easy, it gets cold here. But like I said, the support has been fantastic. And the locals and businesses here have been brilliant, bringing us food. They’ve been great really.”
For Mary O’Sullivan from Skibbereen, the Beef Plan Movement is her first protest.
It’s the first time I was standing in a picket line. I’m over 50 years of age. Born and reared on a suckler farm in West Cork
Farming has run in her family for generations, but Mary believes it is a tradition that will end with her.
“We are a dying generation, unfortunately. I have four kids grown up now, the youngest is 17, the oldest is 25. One of them has the Green Cert done but there’s no future in farming for him.
“He is looking elsewhere for employment. I just am of a dying generation.
“The land was handed down to me from my father and my forefathers before me. But I can’t see it moving on. It’s sad. It’s very sad.”
