Executive in Dutch talks to safeguard bacon factory jobs
Wednesday, 18 February 2009
THE Northern Ireland Executive has held meetings with the management of the Vion plant (formerly Unipork), Cookstown and the Dutch government in a move to safeguard jobs at the town’s bacon factory.
Enterprise Minister, Arlene Foster, believes that the actions taken last week by the Executive will be enough to prevent the closure of the Vion pig processing plant which employs more than 600 people in Cookstown.
The DUP Minister believes that the survival of this plant is vital for the future of the entire pig sector in Northern Ireland.
Ms Foster said: "The agri-food processing sector is vital to the Northern Ireland economy, especially at a time when many other businesses are struggling with the global economic downturn.
"I was very concerned that the dioxin incident, which originated in the Republic of Ireland, could have resulted in the closure in the Cookstown pig plant.
"I hope that the decision taken by the Northern Ireland Executive will be enough to save the pig plant based in Cookstown.
"Not only is this plant a major employer in the Mid-Ulster area, but is vital to the survival of the entire pig sector in Northern Ireland.
"Over the last two weeks I have been involved in a series of meetings with the management of the Vion plant, the Dutch Trade Minister and the European Agricultural Commissioner to ensure that a package could be put together for Vion. The Northern Ireland Executive has put together a package at a very difficult economic time for Government Departments.
"Over the coming weeks we will be looking for partial match funding from Europe and State Aid approval in order to give support to the Northern Ireland processing sector."
Ms Foster said she had no doubt that "some politicans will still complain that this is insufficient funding".
She added: "Currently there are some who are either deliberately misleading people regarding the amount of funding that can be received from Europe or have not bothered to investigate the issue about what can be received.
"Approximately 10 per cent of the funding package offered to the Republic of Ireland originated in Europe and not 50 per cent as some would make people believe. Unfortunately Northern Ireland is only likely to receive a similar level of funding from Europe."
The Courier Exclusively revealed in June of last year that the former bacon factory, Grampian Country Foods, had been sold to Dutch group Vion in a deal worth over a quarter-of-a-million pounds.
Grampian Country Foods, one of Scotland’s biggest private companies and one of the UK’s largest food companies, was sold to Dutch group Vion for a price believed to be around £350 million.
Meanwhile, the Ulster Farmers’ Union has met with the EU Agriculture Commissioner over the dioxin problem affecting farmers in the Province.
Speaking after he led a delegation from the Ulster Farmers’ Union for a meeting with EU Agriculture Commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel, on Tuesday of last week to discuss the dioxin problem affecting Northern Ireland farmers who unwittingly fed their animals contaminated feed from the Irish Republic, Ulster Unionist MPE, Jim Nicholson, said that this meeting was very timely.
"Now is not the time to make criticisms, but the Minister responsible will have to make clear why it took so long to apply for help from Brussels. To only come to ask for the same conditions as the Republic of Ireland, two months after we became aware of the problem is, in my opinion, unacceptable," he said.
"The cattle and pork on farms must be dealt with immediately, as the longer this continues, the more difficult it will be for our own high health status."