Amid threats of a boycott of meat factories by farmers, the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, will meet the meat factory owners today in an attempt to resolve a growing dispute over falling beef prices.
When business resumed early this week most factories were quoting only 80p per lb for cattle, a price said to be similar to that being paid 20 years ago.
Yesterday the chairman of the IFA's Livestock Committee, Mr Raymond O'Malley, asked farmers to boycott factories which were paying 80p per lb for bullocks.
He claimed that some specialist beef farmers had received up to 82p for bullocks and 84p for heifers during the week and said others should hold out for higher prices.
He said that if the factories failed to come up with a realistic price, 84p or 85p, farmers would intensify the dispute with a stronger line of action.
If the factories paid this amount, he said, the IFA would work with the meat factories to pressurise the EU to deliver maximum intervention support and would demand an increase in export refunds to bolster spring cattle prices.
Mr John Smith, chief executive of the Irish Meat Association, which represents the factories, said last night that farmer demands did not take into account the market realities.
The factories would be asking the Minister to push Brussels for additional supports for the industry, which was facing a crisis.
The necessary supports included an increase in EU export refunds, which had fallen by 20p per lb since last January, more access to EU intervention and a promise from Brussels that it would not sell off intervention stocks held in EU cold stores while the crisis continued.