First tonight we were joined by Pat O’Toole of the Irish Farmers Journal, Kilkenny IFA Chairman James Murphy and IFAC CEO John Donohue to discuss the EU/Brexit Beef package which was announced earlier today.
The panel also discuss the importance of the European elections and offered some perspectives on the recent IFA hustings event. There are five seats in the Ireland South constituency which covers Carlow, Clare, Cork, Kerry, Kilkenny, Laois, Limerick, Offaly, Tipperary, Waterford, Wexford and Wicklow. The full declared candidate list is:
- Deirdre Clune MEP (Fine Gael)
- Seán Kelly MEP (Fine Gael)
- Andrew Doyle TD (Fine Gael)
- Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fáil, Wexford county councillor)
- Billy Kelleher TD (Fianna Fáil)
- Liadh Ní Riadh MEP (Sinn Féin)
- Shelia Nunan (Labour)
- Mick Wallace TD (Independents4Change)
- Grace O’Sullivan (Green Party senator)
- Adrienne Wallace (Solidarity/People Before Profit)
- Jan Van de Ven (Direct Democracy Ireland)
- Peter O’Loughlin (Identity Ireland)
- Breda Gardner (Independent Kilkenny county councillor)
- Diarmuid O’Flynn (Independent, anti-bailout campaigner)
- Liam Minehan (Independent, farmer)
- Walter Ryan Purcell (Independent, tour operator)
- Theresa Heaney (Independent, homemaker)
- Paddy Fitzgerald (Independent, retired farmer)
- Dolores Cahill (Independent/Irexit Freedom to Prosper)
- Maurice Sexton (Independent, scientist)
- Allan Brennan (Independent, project manager)
- Colleen Worthington (Independent, homemaker)
- Peter Madden (Independent, environmental educator)
Elsewhere Fiona McGovern outlined recent research on sheep gentics being undertaken at Athenry and spoke about an upcoming sheep event happening in Meath. Deirdre Glynn, also of Teagasc outlined progress and methods of water quality improvements with a particular emphasis on the Sustainabilty, Support and Advisory Programme (SSAP).
We had the weekly Farm Diary sponsored by Tullow Mart, their own Mart Report from Tuesday last with Eric Driver and George Candler joined us from Kilkenny Mart to give the Kilkenny Mart Report.
