A “significant number” of Tirlán suppliers received the wrong milk statement in the post on Tuesday.

The co-op it launched an investigation after Tirlán suppliers received information relating to another individual supplier in the post.

“Tirlán sincerely apologises to suppliers impacted by this issue,” a Tirlán spokesperson said on Tuesday night, also confirming that a third-party provider sends the letters.

“An immediate investigation has commenced as a matter of urgency with our third-party provider to establish the root cause after an issue was identified with the August milk statement mailing.

“A significant number of suppliers regrettably received information relating to another individual supplier as part of their monthly milk statement for August.”

Data commissioner

It is preparing a detailed report on this incident for submission to the Data Protection Commissioner.

“Tirlán has a strong focus on protecting data and takes its regulatory obligations very seriously, with procedures in place both internally and with external third-party suppliers.

“All current procedures will be thoroughly reviewed.

“The issue applies to milk statements sent via the mailing service to a number of suppliers. A large volume of suppliers access their statements online directly via the supplier login portal and those documents were not affected.

“All suppliers can access their correct milk statements online via the www.tirlanfarmlife.com website.”

Storing the information

The co-op has been in touch with all milk suppliers on the issue and has requested affected suppliers to store any incorrect statement received securely.

It has told suppliers not to share the data with anyone else.

Affected suppliers are to receive correspondence in the coming days which will include a stamp-addressed letter to return the statements to Tirlán.

A supplier number, a breakdown of milk price, supply for the year to date, details of fixed milk prices and a milk supply forecast are among the data usually contained in a milk statement.