I see that Leitrim’s Pat Gilhooley beat Cavan’s Joe Brady in the vote for the vice-chair of the IFA Rural Development Committee last week. The outcome was watched with interest as this is the committee currently bringing in all the loot: GLAS, TAMS I and II, the €70m local schemes fund, etc. It’s generally seen to be keeping all the balls in the air.

Gilhooley won the vote by 15 to nine. And it could have been higher as one member of the committee ticked the wrong line – apparently he forgot his glasses. Another was absent, baling silage.

It’s fair going given that this was only Gilhooley’s third meeting. He finished up as Leitrim chair in January and stepped on to the committee immediately.

Joe Brady is a good operator but Gilhooley outgunned him on canvassing.

“He put in a substantial canvas,” one observer told The Dealer. “You have to be out early and going hard.”

And of course the top echelons of the IFA is filled with long-term thinkers. Chair of the committee Flor McCarthy will finish his term in January 2016.

Gilhooley is now in pole position to move into the chair if he wants. If so, that would probably keep him out of the race for Connacht vice-chair to replace Tom Turley in two years’ time – a position with which Gilhooley’s name has been linked.

Mayo county chair Padraic Joyce is seen as a strong contender for that and he would have supporters everywhere, including the Rural Development Committee.

Meanwhile, Michael Biggins and, of course Joe Brady, are the others who may be interested in succeeding McCarthy next January.