Monaghan IFA Livestock Committee Chairman Andrew Boylan has claimed it is “incredible and totally unacceptable” that the Government are awarding food supply contracts to companies outside the state and placing jobs and producers of Irish products at risk.

According to Mr Boylan, the IFA has been informed that the Defence Forces have recently withdrawn a major meat contract from an Irish supplier and awarded the contract to an out of State meat wholesaler. “This is double standards by the Government, which on one hand regard people crossing the border to shop as unpatriotic while on the other they award multi-million euro contracts to out of State suppliers, resulting in job losses and the import of non-Irish produce.”

Mr Boylan added that after major investments by Irish farmers, Bord Bia and processors in developing the highest standards through the Bord Bia Quality Assurance scheme, it is unbelievable that the Government would not insist on this standard for all procurement. “This is a real case of the Government not practicing what they preach.”

The Livestock Committee Chairman has called on the Minister for Defence Tony Killeen to intervene and insist that the meat supplied to the Defence Forces is quality assurance Irish produce, produced and processed in the Republic of Ireland.