Ireland is in the midst of a third wave of COVID-19, and in the agricultural sphere marts have always been at the coalface of restrictions.

Many marts have made the decision to postpone sales until the situation settles down and to avoid any mixing between customers and staff.

I heard one mart manager said their concern was that staff were mainly young, single men who might have done “their fair share of mixing over the Christmas”.

They might be young and single but they’re not to mingle, at least not for the next few weeks.