Dinny McGinley
Question:35 Mr. McGinley asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food his proposals to dispose of meat and bone meal; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13923/03]
Written Answers. - Meat and Bonemeal Disposal.
Willie Penrose
Question:52 Mr. Penrose asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if he is satisfied with the measures in place to deal with the animal waste mountain here and the profits being accrued from this by some businesses; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13981/03]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 35 and 52 together.
In January 2001, to address the situation faced by the cattle sector, and against the background of particular difficulties being faced by the beef sector due to the closure of non EU markets, I introduced a subsidy towards the cost of rendering offal into MBM and its subsequent storage and disposal. It was always intended that the subsidy would be short-term to facilitate an adjustment by the livestock sector to the changed legislative environment and the difficulties in the beef market at the time. Since then the level of subsidy has been gradually reduced. Since last October, when the rendering industry became fully responsible for MBM disposal, significant quantities of MBM have been exported for incineration and no additional quantities of stocks have been accepted for disposal by the State.
There is nevertheless, a backlog of stock under departmental control of 170,000 tonnes awaiting disposal. In my view every effort should be made to make use of MBM in a way that extracts maximum value from it, in either energy production or industrial use, and thereby reduce disposal costs. This is the position in many other member states. This would be of benefit to the economy generally in terms of reducing the use of fossil fuels and would also be of benefit to the agriculture sector. Any disposal facilities would, of course, have to fully comply with the environmental and planning requirements of the relevant regulatory authorities, and would have to be in full compliance with EU animal by-products regulations.
We need to face up to the responsibility of dealing with the waste and by-products of livestock industries. Failure to do so is strategically unwise in the long run and leaves one of our primary natural resource industries exposed to competitive pressure from those countries who are willing to face the reality of having a modern animal and livestock sector.