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Bord Bia has predicted a tight cattle supply for the “foreseeable future” at its annual Meat Marketing Seminar in the Killashee Hotel, Naas, last week.

Beef sector manager Mark Zieg told an audience of 200 that supply looks to be down 50,000 to 60,000 head in 2023. is has been fuelled in part by Ireland’s total cattle kill being up 8%, or 132,000, in 2022 to 1,820,485 head.

Mr Zieg highlighted a strong increase in cow culling, up 14% in 2022 to 413,410 head.

He said: “2022 was also a very strong year for live export at 286,347, up 16%. ere was a strong performance from all key markets in Europe and north Africa.

“ e Dutch market came through for calves. e longer term outlook is challenging — there’s societal and legislative pressures there that we have to deal with continuously.”

Bord Bia also noted that breeding females weren’t utilised to the same extent as other years, and instead nished earlier in 2022.

“ ose young cattle came through in the second half of last year and we might not see the same amount of cows culled in the rst half of this year. e tightness will be in the rst half of the year and possibly in the last quarter,” Mr Zieg said.

“Lighter carcass weights were seen in all categories, with cattle being nished younger and feed costs [having an e ect]. Especially on cows, you can see a quite dramatic 13.7kg drop. People availed of a strong cow price.”

Across Europe, beef consumption is anticipated to decline by one per cent in 2023. e dairy and suckler herd is expected to contract by 0.8% and 1.9% over the next 12 months. e long-term picture projects Europe’s cow herd to contract by 5.5pc by 2027.

Bord Bia anticipates a strong import demand from the UK in 2023. In 2022, the UK market held a 43% share of Irish beef exports, up 15% in value.

Also speaking at the seminar was Eva Gocsik from RaboBank, who warned that the UK was likely already in a recession, having experienced negative growth in the past two quarters.

Ms Gocsik said she anticipated that the euro would strengthen against the pound, which would be less favourable for Irish exports.

Outlook for cows not great either. ...

EU ‘action needed’ on medicines shortfall

Ireland South MEP Deirdre Clune has said an EU wide approach is needed to solve the signi cant medicine shortages in Ireland and across Europe.

Speaking during an emergency debate in the European Parliament, MEP Clune welcomed the commission’s plans to oblige manufacturers to guarantee supplies and encouraged a thorough evaluation of EU-wide methods of procurement, purchasing, storage and distribution of key medicines.

MEP Clune, a member of the European Parliament’s Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, said: “ e number of outof-stock medicines in Ireland has risen to 224 this week, but many countries are facing similar problems.

“ is is a shortage of critical medicines, which requires a collaborative response, to put strategic autonomy for our medicines front and centre, while working towards increasing production in Europe, “ she said.

“We must apply the lessons learnt from the pandemic, to discuss common procurement and stop national health systems from competing with each other for the same limited stocks.”

BE MORE with the Irish Defence Forces

e Defence Forces are currently recruiting for General Service Enlistment into the Army, Naval Service and Air Corps. Applicants must be over 18 years and under 25 years for Army and Air Corps and under 27 years for Naval Service recruitment. No formal education is required to join the Defence Forces as a recruit. Applications can be made online at www.military. ie.

Eligible applications will undergo the following assessments; online psychometric test, tness test, interview and security vetting. You must pass each assessment to be considered for enlistment into the Defence Forces.

Informational videos on what to expect at each stage of the recruitment process can be found on our Defence Forces Recruitment social media pages. e Defence Forces is looking for people who seek a challenging and physically demanding career. Applicants should work well in a high-pressure environment, be willing to serve abroad for extended periods of time and have the ability to work in a disciplined military environment and to work with others in a team.

Defence Forces recruit training is 12 weeks in duration, during which recruits are gradually introduced to Defence Forces training skills, tness and values.

Army

On successful completion of basic training, Two Star Privates will be posted to operational units across the Defence Forces and will undergo a further 12 weeks training to progress to the rank of 3 Star Private.

Naval Service

On successful completion of full basic training, the Naval Service rating goes on to complete branch training in one of the four branches. Seaman’s Branch, Logistics Branch, Communications Branch or Mechanican’s Branch. erational or support units in the Air Cops and will undergo a further 12 weeks training to progress to the rank of Airman/Airwoman (Private 3 star equivalent).

Defence Forces personnel are encouraged to complete further training and education, which may enable them to specialise or qualify for promotion and overseas service. e Defence Forces o er several pathways into education through the professional military education scheme. is includes training as technicians such as Heavy Vehicle Mechanic, Carpenter, Electrician, Plumber, IT and Communications specialists, Weapons specialists and Printing Press technicians. Career courses are linked to external educational institutes which allows for recognition of prior learning opening opportunities to seek third level education quali cations. e Defence Forces help you achieve your full potential in life. We’ll train you up and give you the skills and quali cations, but we’ll challenge you too, bring out the qualities you didn’t realise you had, take you further than you expected.

Therese Gunning, Legal Director BT Ireland presents the BT Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition 2023 Social and Behavioural Sciences Category 1st Place Intermediate Group Award to Morette Aylward and Roisin McElwee, Presentation Secondary School Kilkenny for the project ‘A Look Into Our MInds; When Are We At Our Most Dangerous

Great BT Young Scientist win for Presentation Kilkenny

Presentation Secondary School’s recent win at the BT Young Scientist Competition

Minister for Foreign A airs and Minister for Defence, Simon Coveney TD, at stand 3532 talking to Aoife Fitzgerald (16), le , and Orla Gleeson (15) from Loreto Secondary School, Kilkenny about their project ‘Comparing the Flora and Fauna of City v. Country Hedgerows’ Shay Walsh, Managing Director BT Ireland and An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar TD with Pierce Costello and Gregg Ruane from St Kieran’s College Kilkenny and their project ‘Bambu vs Ash’ Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform, Malcolm Noonan TD with Lauren Sinnott and Daisy Cro from Coláiste Pobail Osraí, Co Kilkenny with their project ‘Plaisteach as farraige agus an ei eacht ata againn ann’

First place in the category, Social and Behavioural Sciences - Intermediate Age group, went to students Morette Alyward and Roisin McElwee for their project entitled ‘ A look inside our minds, when are we at our most dangerous’.

More than 250 students were surveyed across di erent schools. e students created a survey using C++ and python coding: • ey completed a survey asking them various questions that have been linked to risk taking • e students had to complete the quiz on their own and this gave them an overall ‘risk score “ • ey then completed the same quiz but in groups, so that they could compare the risk scores to see if the risk score was a ected when they were in a group setting. is tested for the e ect of peer pressure. e students analysed their data with the conclusion that they saw that boys peaked in danger scores at TY level, while girls peaked at 6th year level. TY boys had the highest risk scores of all groups.

Presentation had four projects, involving eight students, at the RDS exhibition.

Louis Fitzgerald and Dylan Muldowney from St Kieran’s College Kilkenny and their project, ‘The e ects of printing money and the realistic possibilities of going cashless’

The Fact OfThe Matter

PAUL HOPKINS Overworked, undervalued: the angels saving our lives

A Friday in July last year, the summer sun two hours from going to bed. I made my way home through crooked country roads from a neighbouring town where I had had dinner with a friend I hadn’t seen in 30 years. I was driving with just one eye on the road. I had gone blind in the other, having had a stroke an hour earlier over the dinner.

I was erringly calm. I had no disability or pain whatsoever, other than the eye completely shut down. I wasn’t even sure it had been a stroke, though I suspected so. Once home I rang 999.

A considerate operator assessed my predicament. “It could be five to seven hours before I can get an ambulance to you. It’s Friday night. And then you won’t be on a trolley for the weekend but sitting on a chair in the corridor. Anyway, the Mater is the better option as Beaumont is not a stroke hospital,” he said.

Could the ambulance take me to the Mater?

“No, the ambulances in your catchment area only serve Beaumont. But they would probably transfer you on Monday when a consultant comes and sees you.”

The idea of a weekend on a chair in an overwhelmed corridor saw me withdraw my 999 request, pour myself a glass of Malbec and watch Grey’s Anatomy — with the good eye.

Next morning my neighbour drove me to the Mater public hospital which, for initial assessment, is better placed than the private one. My local eye specialist, having seen me earlier, emailed ahead. They were expecting me, and hooked me up immediately. Stroke was confirmed and I was admitted to a bed of sorts in the Emergency Department where I languished until the wall clock crossed the midnight hour. I was then transferred, because I have health insurance, to a huge private room where on the Monday a consultant and his team outlined my options.

Send me home with a load of medicines and the chances of another stroke within my lifetime were 15-20 percent. Or open the artery in my neck, clean out the gunge, and the chances of it reoccurring were one to three percent.

“No contest there, doc,” I said. “Let’s open me up. And let’s do it at the private hospital. The food is better there.”

The earliest available opening for the op was 10 days away as I needed to be primed. On the third day in my huge private room my nurse — one of my many angels — asked if I would mind going to a public bed as a young man in that bed was dying and his family wanted privacy.

Later that night I could hear the wailing coming from my once occupied private room.

In spring of last year I found myself in Beaumont for a benign illness that nonetheless needed hospitalisation. I went in by ambulance under the careful watch of reassuring paramedics. The first 17 hours I spent on a chair in a corridor, surrounded by other broken souls, one a woman of at least 85. Catatonic.

My chair was opposite a room into which medics would invite families to tell them their loved ones had died. You could hear the relentless sobbing.

When I eventually managed to attract a nurse’s attention, I pleaded: “For pity’s sake I can’t do this. Find me a bed, please. I’m an old guy.”

Eventually they moved me to a ward with five other men, older than me I guessed. Two obviously had dementia, while a third had mental health issues as he continually verbally abused the nurses when not talking to himself.

“He shouldn’t be here,” I said to the nurse.

She said: “There’s no room anywhere there for him, so we have to keep him here.” She was leaving in four weeks for a post in Dubai.

In the January I had surgery on my spine to correct the deterioration of an injury from a horse throw back in the Seventies in Africa. The procedure was in the Hermitage private. The hospital was more like a five-star hotel, attention to my every whim worth every euro of my hefty insurance premium.

All the staff from tea-lady to consultant were wonderful, kind professional people lovingly mending my broken body. But no more so than any of the dedicated and committed people I encountered in my subsequent visits.

All overworked and undervalued by the system. Even with one eye closed I can see that.

Marianne Heron, P12