The IFA is expected to stage a 48-hour protest over beef prices from Sunday night, continuing through Monday and Tuesday.
The move comes after the IFA staged a 24-hour protest outside the country’s meat factories, which ran from a Bank Holiday Monday through to Tuesday afternoon. The factories did not react with a price increase to the protest and the IFA held an emergency meeting last Sunday evening to discuss further action.
It was decided at that meeting that further action could and would be taken if necessary. Sources say the ‘further action’ was sanction as there was no immediate move on beef prices during the week and the processors are not going the distance the IFA believes they should go. “We are not hanging around. There is a week here to see substantial progress to close the gap,” the source said.
The planned protest comes despite calls from the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Simon Coveney for calm until the next beef summit roundtable on November 12.
However, sources within the IFA said there were fears there would be no price rise until after the next round of the beef summit and this 48-hour protest was sending the right message to the processors.