I thank the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Heydon, for attending. He is very welcome. It is a busy week for him.

I thank the Minister for attending and for giving of his time to deal with this matter, which relates to the corporate governance responsibility and credibility of Bord Bia, and, in particular, the credibility of Bord Bia if it continues to have Larry Murrin as its chair. For nearly two weeks now, this matter has been allowed to drift. With every single day that passes, the credibility of Bord Bia, and in turn the credibility of Irish produce, is at risk. Ireland’s reputation internationally is being put at risk while this continues.

As the Minister and I know, Bord Bia is one of the most important agencies we have when it comes to how Ireland is seen abroad. Its credibility is not optional; it is foundational. It exists to champion Irish food, farming and produce on the world stage and to sell the story of quality, integrity, sustainability and trust. That story falls apart when the chair of Bord Bia simultaneously associates with business practices that directly contradict the standards Bord Bia promotes. This is not about perception alone; it is about a clear conflict of interest. Pretending otherwise insults the intelligence of farmers and producers.

Conflict-of-interest rules are not box-ticking exercises. They exist because you cannot credibly regulate, promote or oversee a sector while benefiting from practices that undermine it. When the chair’s personal business model cuts across the very values Bord Bia is meant to defend, that position becomes untenable. There is no argument about that.

Farmers are not reacting emotionally; they are reacting rationally and justifiably to the blatant double standards that are evident. They are asked to meet ever-higher standards, absorb rising costs and protect Ireland’s reputation while seeing the standards ignored from the very top. Confidence has been damaged, and once trust is broken it is extremely hard to rebuild. International markets are watching this very closely. If Ireland tolerates conflicts of interest at the highest level of its food-marketing body, our claims of integrity ring hollow. This damages Bord Bia’s authority, weakens Irish exporters and ultimately hurts family farms, which depend on Bord Bia’s credibility to access premium markets.

I ask the Minister not to let this go on any longer and to say that the position is untenable and that Larry Murrin should step down as chair of Bord Bia. The Minister should go see all the farmers who are protesting and who have locked themselves into a Bord Bia office. Farming is their livelihood and they have to meet certain standards. If the chair who holds them accountable regarding those standards buys his beef from Brazil, it is a complete conflict of interest and it needs to be addressed.

I am delighted to have the opportunity to address this important issue in the Seanad. In the context of Senator’s numerous uses of the phrase "conflict of interest" – I did not keep count – I heard no proof offered. I heard rhetoric. Where is the proof? Has Sinn Féin sought a briefing from the chairperson of Bord Bia? The Senator has sullied someone’s name under privilege in this House but has offered no proof. Her party has tabled a Private Members’ motion that will be debated in the Dáil for two hours this evening. I look forward to debating it.

At no point did the Senator explain the point. I will explain a few things about international trade deals. I will explain a number of things about the importance for Irish farmers of the work Bord Bia does in marketing the produce the farmers produce to the highest standard. I will explain about the work that Bord Bia does in having a quality assurance scheme that our farmers have to meet very high standards for. I know that audit system. I have gone through it myself. It is frustrating, laborious and challenging but it means farmers get a bonus payment for their produce - their sheep meat, their beef and their dairy produce. They get that because we export 90% of the food our farmers produce. What happens internationally is hugely important. Everything Senator Collins is talking about is national and relates to Ireland, which makes up just 10%.

In general, if you take an Irish food company that does a multimillion euro deal with an international client that is to supply Irish food produce to 40, 50 or 60 countries, including countries in the Middle East and Asia, that may be way beyond Europe, Ireland and the UK. If that deal is worth hundreds of millions of euro and the Irish food company wins that contract and ensures the majority of the meat produce in that contract is Irish produce worth hundreds of millions of euro to Irish farming interests, it is obviously in the interest of Irish farmers that Irish food companies win those contracts.

More than price and more than anything, what international clients need, particularly since the pandemic, is guarantees of continuity of supply. They can never afford to have a day they do not have supply. Built into these highly integrated global international deals that Irish food companies are doing regularly is proof that you have spare capacity of five or six weeks at any given time that can be leaned on tomorrow. If you are dependent on a country like Ireland which is producing the majority of the produce, you need proof there is a contingency. If there was any food scare in Ireland or across Europe, you need to have alternative sources of supply so you will not fail to meet your contractual obligations.

To take the example of the pork dioxin issue that happened in Ireland back in 2008, every bit of Irish pork had to come off the shelves overnight. Large clients cannot afford to have that happen. What they need an Irish food company, or any other company that wins these contracts, to do is prove it can access supply from somewhere else. Some clients will actually stipulate the countries or the regions. A company and a client might insist that 1% of produce must come from Brazil but that facilitates the use hundreds of millions of euro worth of Irish farmers' produce. It is only 1% to prove the channel is there if all of the supply from Ireland and across Europe was to face a problem because of a food security scare or something like that on very short notice.

If this was about price or conflict of interest, it would be way more than 1%. It is purely about proving contingency of supply. That is why farmers benefit from these trade deals. If the Irish food companies did not agree to what the clients wanted in the deals and did not win the contract, and let us say a food company from the Netherlands, Germany or any other country other than Ireland won that contract, does the Senator think those companies would have hundreds of millions of euro worth of Irish farmers' produce in the deal? No, they would not. That is why these deals are of benefit. We need to explain that to our farmers instead of employing rhetoric to whip them up and trying to jump on a bandwagon. We need to explain the integrated nature of international supply deals and how they benefit Irish farmers.

The fact that Bord Bia is overseeing year on year record growth in the value of our Irish food and drink exports is testament to the fact that this approach is in Irish farmers' best interests and delivers for their bottom line.

Not for one minute am I saying Bord Bia is not a fantastic company. I have said this from the start. We need Bord Bia. However, it is the farmers who make Bord Bia look good as well because-----

It is a partnership.

It is a partnership, yes. The farmers must have faith and trust in it. Farmers see the chair of Bord Bia import from Brazil, which has been in the news recently with the callbacks and the recalls because we cannot trust it. We have seen this with Mercosur. We cannot trust what comes in from Brazil because it does not have the same controls we have here. The farmers in this country feel like they are being sold out for a cheaper product. It might not be about the price. It is about how they feel. The Minister has to see that, in the round, the farmers in Ireland feel as if they are being sold out because you can get a product that is not up to the same standard, bring it in for cheaper and sell it off as Irish meat. It is very unfair, whether it is being done that way or not.

I have no problem with Bord Bia. It is an absolutely amazing State company and it does unbelievable work abroad for us. Without it, our farmers would not be able to get into the markets they do but, without our farmers, Bord Bia would not be there. We have world class beef because of the standards we have to stick to. The 1% will not make a difference to these farmers. It is about the fact the chair is importing in for his private business while trying to promote Irish beef. There is a conflict.

It is a partnership between the farmers who produce the top-quality food to meet the very high standards set down and the audit system Bord Bia has put in place which allows us to give information to clients at the end and which, in turn, allows our farmers to reach higher value markets. Internationally, Irish beef is not competing on commodity markets with Brazilian beef because we go for higher levels of sustainability. It is due to the very data our farmers are inputting through the audit system that Bord Bia is able to work with Irish food companies to market produce internationally and to attain higher values for Irish farmers. The system is completely integrated. My Department plays an integral role in making sure that we continue to gain access to new markets along the way.

The mask has slipped. The Senator let the cat out of the bag in her supplementary question when she alluded to the fact that it is not about the 1%. It is all about optics. She does not care about the fact that she has sullied a man's name in the Chamber.

I did not sully-----

That man has waived his fee and worked gratis, as a matter of public service, because he fundamentally believes in the important role Bord Bia plays. He sees what it has delivered for our farmers, our agrifood sector and for the thousands who are employed in our processing industry. However, for optics, let us just tear the House down and whip up farmers rather than explain the thing to them. The Senator did not want to know the detail here today.

I thank the Minister for coming to the House and giving of his time.