An unprecedented meeting involving the Property Services Regulatory Authority (PSRA) and all of the country’s livestock marts is to be held later this month, the Irish Farmers Journal has learned.
The meeting will take place in Athlone on Sunday, 11 May.
It is understood that mart managers, mart chairs and representatives of each mart’s finance committee have been asked to attend the meeting with senior officials from the authority.
While no agenda for the meeting has been forwarded as yet to individual marts, it is anticipated that the compliance with PSRA client account regulations will top the agenda.
The Irish Farmers Journal understands that the authority audited close to 20 marts last year, and also required marts to provide end-of-year account balances to the authority.
“Marts are in the dark regarding the agenda [of the meeting] but the fear is that the audits and end-of-year balances have highlighted major holes in the system, and tighter controls are on the cards,” one mart manager said.
Compliance
A spokesperson for the PSRA told the Irish Farmers Journal that a key role of the authority is engagement with the sector (licensees) on a wide variety of statutory provisions contained in the Property Services (Regulation) Act 2011 and its respective regulations relevant to the provision of property services.
“The central theme of the PSRA engagement with mart personnel on 11 May 2025 is to address statutory requirements of licensed marts, including compliance with the client money regulations.”
The PSRA this week has suspended the sales licence of Portumna Livestock Co-operative Mart.
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