Auctioneer Denis Barrett issued a statement on Friday to say that the 500 pedigree animals would be sold on Monday at 9:30am on the farm in Novohal near Kinsale, Co Cork, follwing a first auction at the site on 12 April.

A spokesperson for the auctioneer has since confirmed that the sale was going ahead despite "misleading text messages saying the sale is going to be cancelled". The spokesperson believed that the messages had been sent to farmers "to affect the number of buyers" at the sale.

Following the failed bids that led to this new sale, the auctioneer has also confirmed that "only those who have preregistered and provided cleared funds to the agent’s bank will be granted bidder numbers or access to the farm for the auction and interested parties can only bid to the value of their precleared funds", as previously reported by the Irish Farmers Journal.

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