Vol. 542 No. 5
245 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development the degree to which beef and lamb exports have increased or decreased in the past 12 months; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25295/01]
249 Mr. Durkan asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development the degree to which beef, lamb and other meat products are competing effectively on international markets; if the trend is positive; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [25300/01]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 245 and 249 together.
Beef and lamb exports for the first six months of 2001, the most recent period for which statistics are available, amounted to 123,000 and 27,000 tonnes respectively. These figures compared with 273,000 and 25,000 tonnes for the same period in 2000.
Clearly beef exports have been adversely affected by the drop in beef consumption within the EU and the loss of third country markets arising from the BSE crisis in mainland Europe late last year. Every effort at political, diplomatic and technical level has been taken to secure the reopening of these important third country markets. My Department, together with the Department of Foreign Affairs and An Bord Bia has worked intensively to point out to the authorities in those markets the level and effectiveness of the controls in place in Ireland and to emphasise the guarantees in relation to food safety we can offer to consumers of Irish beef. As the Deputy will be aware, this strategy has had a most recent success in Egypt where the controls in place in Ireland have been acknowledged as being acceptable to their experts and I am hopeful that other markets will follow suit.
France is by far our major market for sheepmeat and the returns from that market have been extremely satisfactory this year. Third country trade in sheepmeat does not feature due to the fact that the EU is deficit in the product and the export refund mechanism does not apply.
As regards the competitiveness of Irish meat exports, I am satisfied that within the context referred to of reduced beef consumption within the EU and import bans on European beef by certain third countries, Ireland is nevertheless performing very well. Beef exports to the UK, for example, are considerably above last year's level and the prognosis for the year as a whole is for this to continue. The Russian market is also performing substantially better in the latter half of this year than in the same period last year. Overall, the trend in the beef sector is positive as consumption recovers from the low levels seen in the wake of the BSE crisis last year.
The performance of the sheepmeat sector is extremely positive this year, a factor which is linked to the absence of the UK from the French market.
Question No. 246 answered with Question No. 113.
