The Dealer pitied Department of Agriculture staff on Monday night as they struggled to please an already unamused farmer crowd at the CAP information meeting in Wexford.

Aptly named “the messengers” by farmers, the civil servants looked like they’d rather be anywhere else even before they had to present the ins and outs of the new CAP plan with no WiFi and no slideshow.

The move to take prickly questions from the floor while the Talbot Hotel manager plugged cables in and out worked out no better.

Wexford IFA chair Jer O’Mahony called for compensatory free pints as the hotel manager gave up and proceeded to express his sincerest apologies.

Even those on the top table could have done with one, says I.