Tirlán, which sent a “significant” number of suppliers incorrect milk statements earlier this week, has said it has now put in place “a track and retrieve procedure” to recover them.
It has also confirmed that it has referred the issue to the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) and is awaiting instructions from the DPC in relation to the issue.
The company, formally known as Glanbia Co-op and Glanbia Ireland, today (Friday, October 9) reiterated its apology to suppliers who have been directly affected by the issue with the August milk statement mailing.
Tirlán investigation underway
Tirlán said an urgent investigation is continuing with a third-party provider to “establish the root cause and put in place steps to prevent a re-occurrence”.
However the company said is also currently prioritising retrivial of the documentation and written to all of the suppliers who were affected.
Tirlán has asked suppliers “to confidentially and securely” retain any milk statement that belongs to another supplier and to return any incorrect statement to the company in a pre-paid envelope which it will provide.
According to the company all suppliers registered can access their statements via an online portal and those documents are not impacted.
Tirlán has stressed that it is “prioritising the reprinting of the August statement” and plans to get this to suppliers as soon as possible.
The Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers’ Association (ICMSA) has said that Tirlán will need to provide a clear explanation for an error which resulted in suppliers being sent incorrect milk statements.
Commenting on the issue, the president of ICMSA, Pat McCormack, said that the matter was “very serious and represented an obvious and irreparable breach of privacy and data”.
However, he believes that most farmers will accept a “genuine mistake” has been made.