Kilkenny meat processors win court injunction against beef protestors

By COLIN BARTLEY

THE owners of two Kilkenny meat plants have been granted High Court injunctions stopping beef farmers from picketing their factories.

Dawn Meats and Anglo-Beef Processors (ABP) Food Group were successful in their application to the High-Court this afternoon for a temporary injunction restraining a number of named protesters from blockading their plants.

The Dawn Meats facility at Grannagh and the ABP plant at Ferrybank were two of the first facilities protestors returned to after farmers rejected the deal hammered out between the stakeholders in the beef industry last week.

Protesters at Dawn Meats in Grannagh had been preventing lorries carrying cattle into the plant but allowed pig lorries to pass.

A Chinese delegation is set to visit numerous beef manufacturing facilities around the country this week, with a view to increasing exports to the world’s largest market.

The Beef Plan Movement has distanced itself from the current wave of protests.  The Irish Farmers’ Association, on the other hand, expressed  solidarity with the protesters and said returning to talks without addressing beef pricing would be “a complete waste of time.”