A farmers leader has called for a limit on the amount of beef which can be imported into Ireland from Latin America even when full import tariffs are paid.
Malcolm Thompson, president of the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association, made the call before meeting Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan on the issue of imports.
"The Minister will be left in no doubt that the volume of South American beef imports entering the Irish and EU market paying full tariff cannot be open ended and that this will have to be addressed at the WTO negotiations," he said before last night's meeting.
"Irish and EU farmers need to know what quantity of South American beef we are dealing with in order to plan production and avoid the type of price collapse seen over the past few weeks."
Central Statistics Office figures show beef imports last year jumped by 60 per cent to almost 30,000 tonnes, representing a third of the entire domestic requirement.
More than 8,000 tonnes of beef came directly into Ireland from Brazil last year. A further 18,000 tonnes entered from Britain, a 10,000- tonne increase on the previous year. The majority of this is likely to be of South American origin.
Mr Thompson, whose organisation represents beef and sheep farmers, is proposing a new EU beef import quota system, similar to New Zealand lamb imports to the EU.
Unlike the lamb quota, the new beef quota should be split quarterly in order to avoid over importing beef exports at particular times of the year, he said.
Earlier this week Ms Coughlan and her most senior officials met farm organisations and beef industry representatives, including Larry Goodman (AIBP), Dan Browne (Dawn) and Kepak's John Horgan.
She agreed with comments at the meeting that tariffs were no longer an effective mechanism to control imports and protect the EU market. The majority of Brazilian imports consisted of chilled fillets, coming in cheaper than Irish product even after paying EU duty of €3,034 a tonne plus 12.8 per cent.
Ms Coughlan has this week promised to bring forward new beef-labelling legislation for the hotel and catering sector on the immediate resumption of the Dáil in September.
The level of imports from outside the EU has particularly angered beef farmers here as the prices they have been receiving has dropped by over €100 a head in the last fortnight.
They have been demanding action from the Government to have all beef consumed here identified by source. Most of the beef imports go into the catering trade where no labelling is required.