I read Phelim O’Neill’s analysis of the performance of the Irish beef sector over the 10 years of the national agricultural plan Food Harvest 2020 with alarm, intense disappointment and questioning why the facts around the awful outcome have not been fully probed and answers provided.

It’s not that we don’t have the national capacity to figure out what has happened.

Why has a planned 20% growth in the value of output, on top of the €1.9bn achieved in 2012, turned into a zero growth in revenue but with an extra 105,000t exported?

Why have the gaps in prices between Britain, as well the main continental markets, and Ireland widened and why especially has the continental market for bull beef from Ireland effectively disappeared, despite continental Europe being primarily a bull beef market?

These are important national questions that deserve both answers and policy recommendations on how to reverse such a trend.

Bord Bia has an excellent market intelligence capacity. Teagasc, through its FAPRI unit, has excellent economists.

I can see no reason or no project more important than one that would examine the rumours around the re-nationalisation of the markets, the perceived commoditisation of the Irish beef product through the growth of the mince outlets and the damage done through the permitted emphasis on national labelling with little marketing spend by the industry itself, unlike in the dairy sector.

It is clear we are not being served well by the present model, with its lack of transparency and the emphasis on industry margin rather than producer wellbeing. We need a new direction based on clear analysis of what has happened and what is in the national interest.