In 2006, Ireland accepted EU compensation to dismantle the beet industry. Now we want back in.
When the Waterford to Rosslare train line finally ran out of puff in 2010, its slow demise could be traced back to a decision taken four years previously: the acceptance of EU compensation by Ireland’s sole sugar producer in return for dismantling the State’s beet industry.
Allan Navratil is a reader.
"I read anything," he said.
As a boy, he was given a set of encyclopedias that were the length of a Radio Flyer red wagon. Navratil read the books cover to cover.
At 74, he keeps looking for more.
He plays piano. He is into astronomy.
Navratil lives in Midleton, Ireland, which is called the birthplace of whiskey. When he was in Saskatchewan earlier this month he saw the annual Draggins Rod and Custom car show at Prairieland Park and had supper one evening with friends in a hotel near the airport.
Navratil's main reason for coming to Saskatchewan is planted in agriculture.
The Irish Sugar Beet Bio-Refinery Group has released a feasibility study into the establishment of a bio-refinery plant which it says would create 5,000 jobs and eliminate imports of up to €200m a year.
Irish Health Minister Dr James O'Reilly has concocted a new austerity measure for Ireland: this time taxing consumers for purchasing sugar laden soft beverages (soda), in a bid to stem rising rates of obesity and diabetes in Ireland.
IRISH sugar could be back on the shelves again after farmers and businessmen said they are prepared to make a €400m investment to revive the sugar industry.
They said Ireland could combat growing world shortages of sugar by producing 250,000 tonnes of sugar and 11 million litres of bioethanol.
An Irish MEP has suggested accessing funding from the European Investment Bank to help kick-start the revival of the Irish sugar beet industry.
Gael MEP Sean Kelly this week urged the government and Greencore to take example from the UK, where British Sugar has drawn down EIB finance of up to e120 million to drive its biofuel industry.
The campaign for the restoration of Ireland's sugar beet industry moves to Brussels next week when former sugar beet growers will meet senior EU Commission officials.
The meeting has been organised by Ireland East MEP Mairead McGuinness and takes place next Tuesday.
The farmer delegation will include Willie French from Wexford and Jim O'Regan from Cork. The two former sugar beet growers have been among the main drivers of the campaign to revive the industry.
THE CONTROVERSY over the ending of the sugar industry in Ireland was addressed by the director general of the Department of Agriculture, Tom Moran, at an Oireachtas committee yesterday.Sugar cannot be produced in the State under current EU regulations but ethanol could be, Mr Moran said.
A restructuring of the sugar-producing industry led to the closure of the Mallow sugar factory in 2006 but it has now emerged that the factory was profitable and should not have been shut down.
The EU auditors looking into the case said the factory was actually profitable at the time its gates were closed in 2006.
The closure led to the loss of 240 jobs.
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