THE EU Beef Management Committee yesterday agreed to raise export refunds on beef by 5 per cent for male live and carcass exports and by 7.5 per cent on female exports and male hindquarter exports.
The move comes in response to farmer protests over sharp falls in the price of beef on the Irish market and in the French cattle market but does not approach compensation for pre Christmas refund cuts.
A spokesman for the Commission said, however, that "it is very difficult to see any justification for any further increase". Apart from the problems in Ireland and France there was a general rise in prices in Europe and the demand for export licences had risen to some 8,000 tonnes a week, he said.
The Minister for Agriculture, Mr Yates, welcomed the move as an important psychological boost to the cattle trade at a sensitive time". He was "pleased they were moving in the right direction, although it was not a total solution and he would continue his efforts to ensure a reasonable income to beef producers.
Farmers and the Government have been concerned that the price fall was threatening the viability of winter fattening and hence attempts to end the seasonality of supply in the Irish market. The IFA has claimed that farmers are losing up to £70 a head.
The Beef Management Committee also moved to curb speculation in the use of export licences by cutting from two months to one month the validity of the licences, a decision also welcomed by Mr Yates.
Many licences from last year have still not been used up fully, but the move is not retroactive, and the Minister warned factories there was no reason at present to use the Commission's decision to justify price cuts.
The spokesman for the Commission said they were confident that the level of demand for licences was now such as not to exhaust the GATT quota before the end of the quota year in June. He admitted, however, that if the demand were to increase dramatically once again the Commission might be forced to cut refunds.
The agreed GATT quota is for the export of 1.1 million tonnes of subsidised beef, and the Commission has been attempting to ensure that the quota use spread throughout the year by varying the level of subsidy according to demand for licences. With Ireland exporting more beef than any other member state cuts in export refunds are particularly painful.
The Fianna Fail deputy spokesman on agriculture, Mr Hugh Byrne, said yesterday: "The decision is a token gesture that is inadequate. Increases in export refunds of between 5 and 7 per cent will not halt the slide in the price of beef."
The IFA national livestock, committee chairman, Mr Raymond O'Malley, said Mr Yates was wrong to accept the decision of the EU Beef Management Committee as an interim solution to the beef price crisis.
The Irish Livestock Exporters' Association said it was appalled by the "minuscule" increase in export refunds. The Munster MEP, Mr Pat Cox, said the Commission's decision to grant modest increases in export refunds was welcome as far as it went.
However, he added, it still fell a long way short of what is required to restore the cuts of last autumn. Irish farmers are facing the prospect of losses this spring, according to Mr Cox.
The chairman of the ICMSA Livestock Committee, Mr Nicholas Ryan, welcomed the increase but said it was only a token gesture. Mr Ryan also called on the Minister for Agriculture to exert maximum pressure in Brussels to get a full restoration of the refunds to enable Irish traders to hold valuable Third World markets, now being lost to countries like Australia.
