Factories won't pursue legal action if processing can continue–- MII

Legal action taken by factories against individual farmers will remain suspended as long as factories are allowed to process and undertake normal business, Meat Industry Ireland has said.

MII senior director Cormac Healy said the representative body did not initiate any legal proceedings and that any action undertaken was done so by individual factories.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio One, Healy said MII had engaged constructively in talks to try “make progress where progress was achievable”. Equally, he continued, companies had to “take their own advice in terms of how things progress”.

Protests

“Clearly we see protests again taking place. Companies need to protect themselves and their businesses. They need to ensure they can function as they were brought to a halt,” Healy added.

Healy accepted the overhanging threat of suspended legal action did not help, but said companies had initiated the actions when they were closed down.

“Workers were being temporarily laid off, customers were not being supplied. That’s the last resort at which [point] companies felt they had to progress. Those [legal actions] have been suspended and there has been no re-initation of those in the meantime, while talks went ahead.”

Legal action

Healy said there should be no fear of those legal actions recommencing if companies are allowed to process and undertake normal business.

Individual farmer protests have resumed at some factories, with the Beef Plan Movement stating it has no involvement.

Healy said it was disappointing to see protests resume at some factories, stating that MII feels there is no valid reason for them continuing following conclusion of talks.

“We’ve had significant and extensive discussions with the farm organisations, including Beef Plan and a lot of progress has been made at those talks. Beef Plan had brought forward an agenda of 13 items, I think at least nine of those there has been movement on and the others there is still a significant work programme in place,” Healy said.

He called for time to be given to allow the various agreed aspects to be “investigated, and inspected and verified independently” rather than cause more disruption.