Beet Ireland have arranged a further meeting with Cork County Council to discuss potential sites for a new beet factory.

There’s been some speculation in recent weeks about the potential location for the new sugar factory in Cork but Minister of State Sean Sherlock said this week the discussions are still ‘at the preliminary stage’.

“There are still a number of points that need to be addressed such as the identification of a properly zoned site as well as financing the purchase of a favourable site,” he explained.

He met recently with representatives of Beet Ireland, afterwards stressing his commitment to working with them and liaising with Cork County Council to establish suitable locations.

“Any site that is chosen as a prospective manufacturing facility has to be on the basis that it is zoned. In other words a brown field un-zoned site could only be chosen if it was deemed that existing zoned sites were unsuitable from a planning point of view,” he pointed out.

Minister Simon Coveney has stated on the record of the Dáil that the capital costs could be anywhere from €250million to €400million.

“Given that there is now certainty around the abolition of quotas from October 1st 2017, the market for sugar processing will now open up. When I was mayor of Mallow in 2004, I was the first local politician to state that an ethanol producing facility at the pre-existing factory in Mallow could be viable. In determining the most suitable site, all potential sites in north and east Cork should be seriously looked at. The viability of an emergent will not only be based on sugar processing but also on the potential for horticulture and energy production,” the Minister said.

“We should have an open mind on the potential site in the county of Cork, bearing in mind that Cork will be competing with other counties for this enterprise. As Junior Enterprise Minister I have begun to take a facilitative role in assisting Beet Ireland liaise with Cork County Council. The sugar industry put bread on my family’s table for years. My late father was a former employee of the Mallow factory and I myself spent a number of summers there. I know the value of such an industry,” he concluded.