Dublin may be hit by another farmer protest next week. The Individual Farmers of Ireland has served notice that it will return to the capital for the third time in seven weeks unless it sees satisfactory progress from Thursday's meeting of the beef taskforce.

It wants the gap in price between Irish beef and the EU average closed by the end of the week. Meetings have been scheduled for Friday night around the country to make a final decision.

Call for support

The group has called for support from all other farm organisations. The two groups calling themselves the Independent Farmers of Ireland had a strong visible presence at the November protest, with some leading Beef Plan members also present.

The protest is being mooted for Wednesday afternoon 15 January and is set to run through until the following day, which would lead to significant traffic disruption in Dublin on both days.