THE EU’s international trade committee introduced compromise amendments to the Mercusor deal on Tuesday in the face of strong criticism of the regulation.

The adopted package includes a tightening of market monitoring obligations, allowing 99,000t carcass weight of beef, most of it from Brazil, to enter the EU at a reduced tariff rate of 7.5%.

Under the amendment monitoring reports must be issued every three months as opposed to every six months, to include product-specific data and border checks.

However the IFA has called for EU officials to account for the Brazilian beef recall in front of the Oireachtas – demanding an explanation for beef containing banned hormones ending up in EU markets.

The amendment came just hours after West Cork councillors warned that the Mercusor deal in its current form will threaten family-run farms across the country as they will struggle to compete with cheap imports.

Cllr Finbarr Harrington (Ind) raised a motion at a meeting of Cork County Council calling on the local authority to write to Taoiseach Micheál Martin and the Minister for Agriculture Martin Hendon to reject the deal in its current form because it poses significant environmental, social and economic risks and will threaten the viability of the agricultural sector in Ireland.

‘Irish beef can be traced from the day it was born to the day it dies due to strict rules and regulations enforced by the Department of Agriculture. This won’t be a level playing field for family farms as they will be competing with beef that has no regulations,’ said Cllr Harrington.

‘There are health implications for consumers. Irish farmers follow very strict rules around medication of cattle especially regarding the withdrawal period if using antibiotics. Some of these take 42 days to leave the system and farmers aren’t allowed slaughter the animals until this has passed. This is a bad deal for our farmers but it’s also a bad deal for public health in general as they won’t know what they are eating.’

Cllr Peter O’Donoghue (Ind) seconded the motion describing the Mercusor deal as the death of agriculture in Ireland.

‘This deal cannot be supported in any shape or form and the Government response has been very weak,’ he said. ‘They have to start protecting our agriculture industry, which is the backbone of our country and rural Ireland.’

Cllr Danny Collins (Ind Ire) said the deal will be disastrous for Irish beef, while Cllr William O’Leary (Ind) said the traceability of Irish beef is their selling point and now the market will be flooded with ‘slop’.

Cllr John Michael Foley (FG) said the standards for beef in Ireland is very high with regular inspections.

‘The standard of beef coming in from South America will be of very low standard and if these imports come into our market small and medium size farms could go out of business,’ he said. Cllr Daniel Sexton (Ind Ire) warned of the carbon footprint of importing ‘this junk’ from these countries.