Irish meat processors and retailers have huge amounts of power and the processors in particular are “verging on cartel-like”, Matt Carthy, Sinn Féin’s agriculture spokesperson, has said.

“Farmers need to get a fair price for their product, and that price needs to be protected. We’ve seen even over the past 12 months, the pig sector, which would have been one of the most profitable sectors, went through turmoil last year because prices dipped and input costs rose beyond a sustainable level.

“We see our sheep farmers at the moment facing an existential crisis if action isn’t taken and then at different periods I would have joined many of you at factory gates in respect of beef prices.

“The problem is the wrong people have the power when it comes to setting prices. The processors and retailers have huge amounts of power. I would argue in the case of the processors in particular it’s verging on cartel-like,” he told a Sinn Féin meeting in Cootehill on Monday night.

The Cavan-Monaghan TD said that the agri-food regulator is not yet as strong as Sinn Féin would like, although he welcomed the fact that the Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue “accepted some of our key amendments in terms of the power of the body to get information from processors”.

“We will be supporting the establishment of the new body, but my view is that when Sinn Féin is in Government we will have to provide it with additional powers that the Government seem unlikely to do,” he added.

Forestry

On the forestry sector, he said Ireland “absolutely” has the capacity to grow more trees.

“We need to grow more trees in Ireland for a couple of different reasons, first in terms of our climate obligations. One of the things that really galls me when it comes to our approach to climate action is the level of tokenism and hypocrisy that underpin it. We are planting less trees now than we were in the middle of the second world war,” he said. He added that forestry has become a “dirty word” as a result of planting policies in the northwest.