The Beef Market Taskforce sat down together for its first meeting in some time on Wednesday with a full plate of issues to work through.

While it was technically face-to-face engagement, the chat was over Zoom rather than in the room. That might be just as well, because feelings are running fairly high at present, particularly over the TB letters.

The issues have been well thrashed out, with farmers believing that they are being asked to carry the can for a decade of stagnation in TB eradication.

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Wildlife control in the hotspots is a hotspot itself.

The inference farmers drew from the letters that they could clear their herd of infection by culling older animals has enraged them.

All this while hearing they might have to increase farmer funding, in percentage and real terms, as the costs of TB control could reach €100m. That’s €14 for every animal in the country.

From the Department’s perspective, whatever the provocation, the burning of letters by IFA leadership is being seen as inflammatory (pardon the pun).

Then there is the PGI saga. It’s too early to call it a debacle, but the proposal is in bother.

The volume of oppositions, 22, is not the real problem. It’s the range of issues being raised.

Some want the scope of the PGI narrowed, either to suckler animals only, or to a regional rather than a national basis. This includes both the ICSA and the ICMSA. The IFA president is adamant that bull beef should be included. Leading Beef Plan members are putting their own PGI proposal together.

Meanwhile, the ICMSA wants the eligible grades for cows revisited.

For all we know, there could also be oppositions from the other end of the spectrum. Environmental activists could be claiming beef production is harming the planet, and not deserving of protected geographical indication.

That would be a view that the farm organisations might unite against, and Charlie McConalogue may secretly be hoping such a perspective is among the submissions to concentrate minds around the forum table.

Similarly, the Zoom room was surely of one voice in calling for the minister to redouble Ireland’s efforts against Mercosur.

The continuing failure of Brazil to live up to the commitment to not just stop the destruction of rainforest, but to actually replant millions of hectares annually. The rate of deforestation is increasing in Brazil under the Bolsonaro regime, giving Europe a perfect out.

And then there’s Brexit and CAP. A full plate indeed.