We are just finishing building some outdoor cubicles in time for in-calf heifers to come back home for the winter. They have been moving through grass a bit quicker than we would have liked over the last few weeks because of the incessant rain, and with the same rain also delaying the pouring of concrete, it’s been a busy time trying to get everything done before Christmas.

Most of the herd is dry now so the workload in the parlour is decreasing. The building work is taking up the slack and this will continue into the new year as we prepare for extra milking cows next spring. The other main job is obviously the winter feeding routine, which will hit full throttle when these heifers come home for the winter.

We will carry just over 300 in-calf cows into the winter and milk as many as possible through next year. The farm will be stocked at three cows per hectare and the plan is to feed up to a tonne of meal per cow to support this stocking rate. We produced 500kg of milk solids per cow this year with a similar feeding regime, so if we can match this or maybe improve on it slightly, next year we will be very happy.

Milk price will be down for most of the year but with a good proportion of our milk locked into fixed-price contracts and with high milk solids, we are escaping some of the worst effects of this. The budget for the expansion project has been done and we are happy enough to go ahead with the plans.

The big news off farm this week is the Con Lucey report on the IFA. Pat Smith brought the organisation from a value of €4m in 2009 to a value of €19m now, and he did this while saving farmers money on telephone and electricity costs. This was a great performance on the face of it but he was being well paid to do this job.

Instead of paying Pat Smith more bonuses, the organisation should have been channelling the benefits back to the grassroots members. Reducing levies was the obvious first step and even abolishing factory levies at that stage and increasing membership subscriptions over a number of years would have been a good move.

The biggest revelation for most of us was the levels that the presidential salary had risen to in recent years, and especially the termination payment of a full year’s salary on leaving the job. We want good people at the top of the IFA and paid appropriately.

The current board inherited most of these problems from previous administrations but have been left carrying the can. If they can stay in power now they have a big job in front of them. The first job is to get power back into the hands of the commodity committees. The recent beef and grain protests would have been a lot more effective if controlled by the right people.

Leaving one person to cover four hugely important positions in the organisation wouldn’t seem like the best way to make progress, however. Jer Bergin might be the best in the world but treasurer, national chair, chair of the rules committee and returning officer is more than anyone could take on.

We hoped the publishing of the Con Lucey report would be like ripping a band-aid off the wound, letting some air at it and letting it heal. It seems to be just scratching the surface, however, and the wound is still festering away.