On New Year’s Day 2013, Ireland assumed the presidency of the Council of the European Union.

This was Ireland’s seventh time to hold the presidency in only 40 years, but massive expansion of the EU means we haven’t held the presidency since.

At the time, the 27 member states were preparing for the accession of Croatia, scheduled to join on 1 July.

Europe was still recovering from the economic crash of 2008, which hit Ireland harder than most.

Agriculture had underpinned struggling rural economies all over the continent, so there was optimism that negotiations around the CAP programme and its budget could prove fruitful.

In February, the 27 government leaders agreed a multi-annual financial framework for 2014-2020.

Then-Taoiseach Enda Kenny chaired those talks, which saw a small but significant increase in the CAP budget.

That gave Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney some impetus. Working with like-minded colleagues within the council of ministers, he achieved a significant rowing back of the flattening of direct payments proposed by Commissioner Dacian Ciolos.

One advantage Coveney had was that Ireland was not subject to external convergence, which saw money move from member states with higher average payments to those with lower ones.

Ireland’s average payment was almost identical to the EU average.

This meant he could focus on slowing internal convergence, movement from higher value entitlement holders to lower ones.

Not all farmers were happy with this policy, which was endorsed by the IFA. Some farmers with lower payments were unhappy with convergence levels and the nature of the rural development package, formed the INHFA.

Meanwhile, tillage farmers, unhappy at the extent of cuts to their entitlements, formed the Grain Growers Group.

What can’t be denied is that Simon Coveney brokered a workable deal within his six months at the helm of the ministerial council.

Martin Heydon will hope to repeat the trick, but is working in a more constrained budgetary environment.