I hear that Meath football manager Mick O’Dowd has joined Bank of Ireland as business development manager for the northeast. For the past three years, the UCD agricultural science graduate from Skyrne had been working for Rabobank. Prior to that, he was well known to farmers as an ACC Bank agri man.

His new role will not be exclusively agri-food, but given the territory – Meath, Louth and north Dublin – he can expect a sizeable amount of interaction with farming and food businesses.