Farmers are being reassured that sales will continue next week following the crash of one online bidding service in marts on Saturday.

Under current Level 5 restrictions, mart sales can only take place online but sales were seriously delayed or cancelled following an IT glitch with one major software provider, LSL Auctions.

This has led to farm organisations and TDs calling for physical buyers to be allowed to return to the ring.

However, the body representing marts, ICOS, has sought to reassure farmers that while they’ve had active discussions with Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue on the possibility of allowing buyers back to the ring, online selling can function very successfully and trade continues to be strong.

Overall trade was marginally up on last year

“The LSL server crashed because of unprecedented traffic of over 30,000 people logging on to the system across all their mart centres,” Ray Doyle of ICOS said.

“LSL have now replaced the faulty server and installed a triple redundancy system to prevent a reoccurrence of this issue. The other remaining mart centres that were operating on other software providers operated very well yesterday without any glitches. Overall trade was marginally up on last year.”

He said that ICOS had impressed upon Minister McConalogue that the mart industry must have a quick and safe return to the mart ring as soon as possible.

“…a blend of online and physical bidding is the fairest and best auction process for livestock, in this the busiest trading period of the year. Delaying this return until December could be detrimental to livestock farmers' incomes,” Doyle said.

Internet access

Issues surrounding internet access in rural areas have been raised by both Independent TD Michael Fitzmaurice and Sinn Féin’s Claire Kerrane.

These issues were acknowledged by Doyle, who said Minister for Communications Catherine Martin needed to act immediately to provide emergency broadband services to marts.