If elected as an MEP, I will work to achieve a significant ‘beefing up’ of the existing EU Unfair Trading Practices legislation.
I hope to achieve this by means of a two-pronged approach to dealing with manipulation of farm product prices.
Specifically on beef prices manipulation by the meat processing industry and retail supermarket chains that certainly has resulted in a rigged market for beef in Ireland, because of the Goodman-owned ABP group having a monopoly on rendering (offal disposal) and the ‘big three’ processors of ABP, Dawn and Kepak – who effectively have cartel control of the Irish beef processing market.
As an MEP, I would be demanding that the two-pronged approach to utilising EU Unfair Trading Practices legislation to maximum policy effect for the benefit of primary beef producers.
This can be achieved by the appointment of an EU Food Regulator with sufficient enforcement powers to impose hefty sanctions and penalties on those firms found to be in breach of EU Competition law.
MEP candidate
The second prong of this radical reform to tackle Unfair Trading Practices, would be carried out at national level by the EU member state.
In that regard, I am proposing fair pricing legislation to be enacted by the Oireachtas, based on existing minimum wage legislation.
This would guarantee that farmers, by law as the primary producers of food products, would be paid a fair share of the retail price of food paid by consumers, while ensuring a fair margin to that primary producer above the cost of production which would thus put a floor on beef prices.
That additional element of national pricing legislation would be necessary to provide farmers and horticultural growers with protection from retail supermarkets using food products as loss leaders as part of their commercial promotional activity.
This has an undermining effect on the food product prices paid by supermarkets to growers of vegetables.
The fair pricing legislation that I am advocating for, would replace the current toothless Food Ombudsman’s office that showed abject paralysis in it’s capacity to prevent the recent pulling of beef prices by meat factories over the last three weeks.
Antitrust at EU level
If elected as an MEP, I pledge myself to work to the best of my ability to bring about the introduction of tough Antitrust legislation.
I will undertake to ensure that such Antitrust legislation would supersede what passes for competition law in member states like Ireland.
This unchallenged dominance in the beef sector has been the principal cause of why beef finishers have been forced into a low margin spiral.
Beef price base quotes are 10-15c/kg below where they were this time last year. Base prices have been pulled by 15c/kg over the last three weeks.
Price differential between Irish and UK beef prices for 360-370kg steers was €170, with average finishers having 30 steers according to Bord Bia figures for the week ending May 5th, 2024.
Excluding VAT, the price for an R3 steer was €5.22/kg on May 5th, 2024 whereas the price for an R3 steer in Northern Ireland plants was €5.60/kg and €5.68/kg in Great Britain that same week.
