The Beef Plan Movement has issued a statement saying it is awaiting confirmation that letters of discontinuance have “issued to all parties in receipt of legal threats and injunctions”.
The statement outlined that staff at the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s, Michael Creeds’, office have been “liaised with during the past 36 hours” regarding the legal threats allegedly remaining over two farmers who were protesting outside C & D Foods in Edgeworthstown.
A statement has been presented to the chair of the Beef Market Taskforce (BMT) and we await further developments.
Concluding, the statement outlined: “The Beef Plan awaits communication from the chair of the BMT with regard to reconvening the taskforce.”
Grave concern
On Monday, the Beef Plan Movement submitted a letter to Michael Dowling, the chairperson of the Beef Market Taskforce, outlining the group’s “grave concern” over the continuation of legal proceedings that arose from the beef dispute.
The letter outlined that, following the agreement from September 15 between farmer associations and meat industry representatives, the stipulation that all blockades and protests would be lifted has been observed.
However, the Beef Plan Movement letter, seen by AgriLand, stresses that there continues to be legal proceedings in place for “named individuals”.
- All parties have entered into this agreement in good faith. The intention here is to resolve all outstanding issues between farmers and processors;
- Blockades and protests will be removed immediately and all parties to this agreement will ensure that this happens;
- Thereafter, beef processors undertake that all legal proceedings against farm organisations and/or individual farmers will be withdrawn in relation to this matter.
The letter argues that the Beef Plan Movement and other farm organisations “used all available powers of influence to get individual farmer blockades and protests to stand down”, and that it has been “established and generally agreed that all blockades and protests have been removed in their entirety”.