The farming lobby’s targeting of Bord Bia and its chair Larry Murrin over beef imports is “very disappointing”, Minister for Education Hildegarde Naughton has said.
The Fine Gael TD said protests by farm groups were “potentially very damaging” to the agri-food sector.
The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) and others, including Sinn Féin, have called for Murrin to step down from Bord Bia after it emerged his company Dawn Farms was importing small quantities of Brazilian beef.
While critics have said this represents a conflict of interest given Bord Bia’s role in promoting the Irish food sector, the Government has backed Murrin, who defended himself last week at an Oireachtas agriculture committee meeting.
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During an appearance on RTÉ’s The Week in Politics on Sunday, Naughton was asked if the Government feels let down by the IFA and its decision to occupy Bord Bia’s offices as part of its protest over Murrin’s business activities.
“I think it’s very disappointing, and I speak personally here. We have supported farmers, we continue to support farmers,” she said, noting the Government’s opposition to the Mercosur trade deal and the extension of a derogation to the EU’s nitrates directive.
She accused Sinn Féin of asking for someone to be “sacked and then get the facts later”.
She said Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon was ready to sit down with the IFA and backed Murrin’s position on his company’s use of small quantities of Brazilian beef as a contingency in its supply chain.
“The protests that we see ... are potentially very damaging for Ireland inc, for Irish farmers,” she said. “It’s telling the international community and the international markets that Ireland is potentially closed for business, and our agri-food sector is closed for business.”
Sinn Féin TD Eoin Ó Broin said Murrin’s private business decisions were his own matters. However, he said that as chair of Bord Bia, “whose job is to uphold the high standards of Irish beef and other produce” and to promote it, there was “a clear conflict of interest and he should go”.
Earlier, Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said Government plans to introduce age verification for the use of social media platforms do not go far enough.
The Coalition is expected to face further pressure over its plans to tighten regulations in the Dáil this week, with Sinn Féin and People Before Profit both planning to introduce related legislation.
Cairns said her party would continue to push for the introduction of a digital copyright law, giving people rights over their own voice and image online, and for there to be consequences for the generation of deepfake images and those misrepresenting people.
The Cork South-West TD said the plans for an age verification mechanism were inadequate. She compared the Government’s reaction to the proliferation of AI-generated images, including child sexual abuse material, on X with that of France, where the platform’s offices were raided.
Naughton defended the Government response and said the Coalition was open to proposals from across the House.
[ Three-quarters of voters in Ireland back social media ban for under-16sOpens in new window ]
She said she “absolutely” rejected the suggestion that the Government was acting timidly on social media regulation in case it prompted a backlash from Ireland’s largely US-owned foreign direct investment sector.
She said Ireland wanted to work alongside the EU to progress its own legislation and policy and review its regulatory mechanisms in line with a fast-changing world.
People Before Profit leader Richard Boyd-Barrett said there was a “very clear contrast” between Ireland’s position and those of Spain and France, which have signalled social media bans for the under-16s. He accused the Government of “soft-pedalling” reforms.
Ó Broin said his party would propose legislation in the Dáil on Tuesday making it a criminal offence to generate intimate images of adults and children using software like X’s Grok tool, which has been at the centre of recent controversy.
