Irish Sugar plc has claimed at the High Court it is in an "absolutely critical" position due to "the IFA-organised" withdrawal of sugar beet for processing at its plants in Carlow and Mallow, Co Cork.
The company yesterday secured interim orders restraining the IFA from taking steps which could lead to farmers withdrawing supplies of sugar beet from the company or which could "intimidate and/or persuade" growers of sugar beet not to supply beet to Irish Sugar.
Mr Justice Smyth was told the company's plant at Carlow had been forced to shut down production from Sunday last while production at the Mallow plant would shut down from today. About 650 people are employed at the two plants.
The court orders, returnable to Thursday, were granted to Mr Lyndon MacCann, for Irish Sugar, against the background of the continuing dispute between Irish Sugar and farmers about payments for sugar beet deliveries.
In an affidavit, Mr Patrick Witherow, Irish Sugar company secretary, said that between this year and last, there had been no change in the basic EU price for sugar beet. Growers, through the IFA, had been seeking increases in other categories of payments but it had not been possible to reach agreement on these.
This had led to the IFA "orchestrating" a campaign to withhold supplies of sugar beet from Irish Sugar, he said.
At a meeting on September 27th last with the IFA Sugar Beet Section Negotiating Committee, the IFA representatives had indicated they were demanding a price increase of an additional £4.70 per tonne because growers had experienced an increase in costs of £60 per acre and on the basis Irish Sugar was a profitable company, Mr Witherow said. The meeting became "somewhat acrimonious" and, when it became clear the company would not grant the increase, Mr Michael Berkery of the IFA had said: "You never learn from the past."
From this and other comments made, "we understood the IFA to be threatening that unless we yielded to their demands, boycotts of the type experienced in the past would be put in place".
