Dairygold yesterday insisted that there would be no reduction in the amount of pigmeat it buys from Irish pig producers, writes Barry Roche, Southern Correspondent.
Its assurance came amid growing fears in the sector that the company will start importing foreign sourced meat following the closures of its plants in Mitchelstown and Roscrea later this year.
Mitchelstown-based Fianna Fáil TD and pig farmer Mr Ned O'Keeffe said that Dairygold's decision to close the Mitchelstown slaughtering plant with the loss of 170 jobs was a serious blow to Irish pig producers. He sought assurances that the company would not source its pigmeat from abroad when the plant closes in October.
A Dairygold spokesman said the company would continue to buy Irish pigmeat at current levels. "We will be buying at least the equivalent volume of Irish pigmeat as we are currently buying - there is no danger of Dairygold abandoning Irish pig producers in any shape or form," he said.
Mr O'Keeffe said that there was serious concern in the sector that Dairygold would start sourcing pigmeat from Denmark, the Netherlands and other European countries. The only way to ensure that the Irish pigmeat industry survived was by branding produce with the country of origin, he said.
Meanwhile, SIPTU branch secretary, Ms Anne Egar revealed that workers at Mitchelstown and Roscrea were angered when they turned up for work yesterday morning and were handed redundancy terms. She said the company had failed to offer union representatives "any reasonable or rational explanation why they did that despite being asked to show sensitivity to people".
Ms Egar said that the company had agreed to meet SIPTU officials next week to explore cost cutting alternatives which would help reduce overheads without the same level of job losses.
Discussions would examine issues such as rates of productivity and overtime payments. The entire week has been set aside for these talks, she said.
Ms Egar said that SIPTU would also be looking for whatever redundancies that do take place to be achieved on a voluntary basis.
Earlier Mr O'Keeffe had called on Dairygold chief executive Mr Jerry Henchy to resign in the wake of his decision to close both the company's slaughtering and boning plant at Mitchelstown and its processing plant in Roscrea. He described Mr Henchy's decision to close both operations as "irresponsible".
But Mr Henchy yesterday strongly rejected the call for his resignation and said that when he took on the job of chief executive, he was aware that the task ahead wasn't going to be easy. He knew that tough decisions had to be taken to prevent annual losses of €26 million up to 2007 and to save the business from certain failure.
"If I thought the job depended on popularity stakes, I wouldn't have taken the job - I joined Dairygold to lead a committed team to do a specific job - firstly to ensure the co-op's survival and secondly to transform it into a world class business capable of competing with the very best," he said.
Meanwhile Mr O'Keeffe's son, Pat - who is IFA Pigs Committee chairman - said pig producers were also threatening a boycott of Dairygold feed products in a bid to make the co-op reverse its decision to close the Mitchelstown plant. Pig farmers would also consider other measures at a meeting in Abbeyleix later today to consider the closure.
