Minister for Agriculture Mary Coughlan was advised yesterday by Government colleague Tom Parlon, the PD Minister of State, to compensate farmers rather than Greencore for the closure of the Irish sugar industry, when she makes her announcement this afternoon.
Ms Coughlan is to make public her decision on who gets the €145 million the EU has agreed to pay in compensation for the closure of the industry here and she has come under intense political pressure from the players involved.
Mr Parlon said he was particularly concerned by reports that Greencore, which operated the plants here, had told investors that it would take the Government to court if it does not get the outcome it wanted.
"If these reports are true then Greencore is effectively telling the Government how to run the country. The Government and not Greencore is in charge of how this country is run, and it is the Government not Greencore who will decide how this compensation is allocated," he said.
Saying growers and not Greencore should get the vast majority of the compensation, Mr Parlon said the land on which the closed factories sit is worth between €150 million and €200 million and the company would be more than compensated by simply reusing the land.
The same theme was taken up by Labour Party agriculture spokeswoman Dr Mary Upton, who said if Greencore sells the plants, it would actually make a profit. She urged Ms Coughlan to allocate most of the funds to beet growers and now redundant factory workers and stand up to Greencore and look after those whose lives had been transformed by the closure.
The group of unions representing Irish Sugar/Greencore workers - Siptu, Amicus, Ucatt and the TEEU - has written to the Minister asking her not to allocate compensation until the company implemented a Labour Court recommendation on redundancy terms.