Taoiseach Micheál Martin has been urged to look at the “bigger and more important picture” around government commitment to the dairy sector, following a meeting with the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA).
At the online meeting this morning (Thursday, April 8), which was also attended by Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Charlie McConalogue, ICMSA president Pat McCormack addressed the issue of Glanbia’s peak supply control measure.
Speaking afterwards, McCormack said that it was “important to differentiate between internal company procedures and the bigger and more important picture” around the development of the sector.
“[We] believe that this is an incredibly important distinction. Glanbia’s peak supply programme is not any kind of feasible answer to the questions that arise.”
Glanbia’s peak milk supply measure is understood to have been brought about by a lack of processing capacity, which in turn is understood to be caused by a legal challenge against a proposed cheese manufacturing facility.
McCormack stressed: “You can’t have a situation where the largest processor in Ireland is telling its suppliers that it can’t handle volumes of milk that the farmer-suppliers have planned and invested for.
“The core problem here is the position that the state is taking – or rather the non-position,” the ICMSA president argued.
“We won’t be able to make any progress if the state sees its role as some kind of neutral bystander.
“The state is not a referee here; it has to set the overall direction and manage the sustainable development of our dairy sector,” he noted.
According to McCormack, the state has a responsibility to put policies in place for this purpose.
He said: “Several branches of the state gave permission for the Belview plant to proceed with onerous conditions attached but it has been seriously delayed by a legal action. The state has to make up its mind what it wants.
“That must be based on what’s good for our dairy sector and wider economy, and then the state has to support and drive that. The Taoiseach and the minister have to lead this,” he concluded.