Prime cattle and young bulls, in particular, suffered the worst losses last winter, a Brexit beef fund meeting in Kilkenny heard.

"We want to see the people who suffered the worst losses targeted", the IFA's director of livestock Kevin Kinsella said as the meeting, the second called by the IFA to assess how to allocate the €100m fund drew to a close. It was a familiar refrain during the evening, as speaker after speaker among a packed audience in the Newpark Hotel called for a quick pay-out.

One farmer spoke of how he had to sell cattle in January because he could no longer afford to feed them, and of the difficulty in getting his bank to support him through the winter following a difficult 2018, when drought and elevated feeding costs preceded a Brexit-related price fall.

The 23 March date the IFA used as the end date for the data provided in the submission that inspired the €100m fund shoud not be seen as not a cut-off point for eligibility, the meeting was told. A number of concerned finishers of young bulls pointed out that much of their winter's work was only reaching maturity and being sent for salughter in April, May and this month. Woods said they should be elegible for payment, but warned that the wider the net is cast, the less per head will be paid out.

The fund is being jointly provided by €50m each from the EU Commission and the Government.

The losses incurred by young bulls in particular were stressed. Laois chair Francie Gorman described the losses as the type that would put people out of business, citing one finisher who only received €3/kg for U grade bulls, down 50% on the previous year.

The wider issues facing the sector were touched on.

Angus Woods made it clear that this fund is purely to address Brexit-related losses incurred since last winter. "This is completely separate to our campaign for a €200 suckler cow payment, which goes on, and will be a major issue in the next budget". it also could not be used to compensate for the elevated costs of the last twelve months, only for the losses on cattle sales.

There was a recognition of the scale of the achievement in gaining the €100m, with IFA president Joe Healy acknowledging that few believed the

Woods also warned the EU Commission that the Irish beef sector would not be sacrificed to allow South American beef easy access into Europe in a Mercusor trade deal - "beef with a far higher carbon footprint", as Woods put it.