Local Notes: Brickens woman is Mayo Caregiver of the Month
Students from Ballyhaunis Community School at the Mayo Comhairle na nÓg Youth Conference 2025, with their teacher Catriona Murphy. Picture: Trish Forde
Congratulations to Brickens woman Eilis Delaney who was named Mayo Caregiver of the Month at homecare provider Atlantic Care.
The company described Eilis as an "outstanding member of the Atlantic Care team, consistently going above and beyond for her clients, who absolutely adore her".
"And it’s not just them… the entire office team thinks the world of her too," the company said.
Ballyhaunis-based Midwest Radio is seeking a more equitable share of government broadcasting funding in order to provide more public service news content.
The state agency Coimisiún na Meán funds media organisations to produce public service-oriented programming but the bulk of funds generated by the TV license fee continues to go to national broadcaster RTÉ. This comes as the Government seeks to amend the national broadcasting bill to combat misinformation as traditional media loses advertising income and audiences to international social media networks.
“There is so much more we could do as a public service broadcaster if more funds were made available,” explained Midwest Radio station manager Tommy Marren. “A number of schemes have been announced to support public service broadcasting of local radio stations and that has to be welcomed. Any funding towards enhancing our local news and current affairs is extremely helpful as local stations are expected to provide the same levels of quality local news and current affairs service as RTÉ but with much less resources.
“We’ve always accepted that RTÉ can cover stories that local radio can’t. However, it is also a fact that we can cover local stories that RTÉ doesn't, so there needs to be balance and structure on how funding is provided on an equitable and balanced basis. It is very difficult to allocate staff to forensically investigate local stories and issues due to lack of resources.
“Our Government is constantly saying how important it is for reputable media providers like Midwest Radio to be adequately resourced to combat fake news. The only way this can be achieved is to increase our news and current affairs staff numbers.
"In the current financial climate, it is almost impossible to recruit additional staff and so radio stations like Midwest Radio have to rely on our existing staff to deliver reputable and accurate news reporting. If more financial resources were made available to us, we believe we could provide more comprehensive coverage of local news and current affairs reporting that would not in any way inhibit the reporting currently provided by RTÉ.”
Long-term economic and social factors upending the beef cattle farming sector will force the closure of meat factories in Ireland, potentially upending the economic pillars of towns like Ballyhaunis where Dawn Meats employs several hundred people, according to an expert of the European meat industry.
Rupert Claxton at Gira Foods, a consultancy, explained that the Irish cattle herd has diminished in the past decade and he sees this trend largely continuing.
“The Irish herd is in a soft decline,” said Claxton who spoke at the recent Teagasc annual beef conference. “Lower cattle numbers in turn piles existential commercial pressures on beef processing companies now forced to pay more for cattle, leaving less to invest in modernisation,” Claxton explained to the .
Unusually, said Claxton, farmers have not responded to higher cattle prices by restocking.
“Farmers are getting good prices for cattle but, with some exceptions, they’re not reinvesting in producing more cattle... In 23 years of studying the beef industry around the world, I have never seen anything like it.”
Some of the factories facing shorter working weeks and longer idling times - with less profit to invest in mechanization - will close, Claxton told this column.
“The reality is you have many small plants in Ireland for the diminishing number of cattle. This is compounded by high labour costs – it’s a very labour intense industry - and a shortage of labour as well as increasing environmental requirements on water quality, energy management and by-products management.”
Due to a shortage of cattle, some rural plants are now killing just three days of the week and some are operating five or six hours a day, said Claxton.
“They have all hung on, farmers like local plants... but there is a commercial cost to idling. Labourers who were on five days are now only getting three days, and they’ll say ‘we cannot live like that.'”
Claxton doesn’t see EU environmental legislation and schemes as the main driver of destocking in the beef sector, though he has seen this impact on the pig farming industry. Instead, he believes the current conundrum is caused by a generational exit from farming.
“The next generation is not keen. Farms are being amalgamated and land is going to other uses.”
Further mechanisation and use of robotics is not an option for plants with tighter profit margins, said Claxton.
“Mechanisation is possible but you need bigger plants to that,” he explained.
Meat processing remains a massively labour-intensive business, said Claxton.
“For a healthy industry going forward all over packers will need to get a profit. We need both sides of the industry to make a profit. Therefore, we need meat packers to reinvest in automation, we need the right environment for the next 20 years. And we need to attract labour.”
Faced with a tightening beef supply at home, Dawn Meats has looked to diversify by purchasing a major lamb meat company in New Zealand. That exporter has major ties to markets in Asia.
“It’s a positive move if the company can make money overseas," said Claxton who is unworried by the proposed EU-Mercosur trade deal.
“There’s been an 800,000 ton reduction in EU beef production. This deal would be adding 100,000 tons in imports back in. We have to be realistic, the EU market is short of meat.
“The bigger headache is the access of Australian meat to the UK market. That’s the number one export market for Irish beef and now there’s a serious competitor doing a quality product. However, the Irish beef retains a good reputation in Britain and is still regarded as part of the local supply chain.”
Recent resurfacing of the Ballyhaunis Library car park was funded with €65,000 from Mayo County Council’s annual budget for 2025 and funded from the council’s own resources, a spokesperson for the local authority said.
“Funding was provided by the local councillors and the council’s chief executive under the car park renewal programme.
“The cost of the work is €65,000 and this includes the resurfacing of the full area, the relining of the car parking spaces and the provision of a new barrier along the river.
"The council also wishes to thank the people of Ballyhaunis for their cooperation during the course of the works."
Aircraft dismantler EirTrade Aviation Ireland Limited recently parked two Airbus A320 jets at its yard at Ireland West Airport in Knock for dismantling. The two six-year-old jets will be dismantled by Christmas, once engines are removed and the parts will be offered for sale, according to Dublin-headquartered EirTrade, which has been expanding its presence in Knock.
Strong global demand for passenger and cargo aircraft – particularly in Asia – is good news for EirTrade and for Ireland West Airport’s efforts to develop a business park adjacent to the airport. Aircraft from around the world have been flown into the breaking yard operated by EirTrade, which dismantles jets for airlines and leasing companies who need parts for growing fleets.
The company can dismantle a narrow-body aircraft like the A320 (the jet popularly used by Ryanair) in two weeks. In November, EirTrade secured planning permission for a new aircraft hangar and warehouse storage facility at Knock, along with a new access road.
Minister of State Alan Dillon explained how planning permission for the Ireland West Airport Knock Strategic Development Zone (SDZ) was officially granted by a special government designation in May 2017 and by Mayo County Council’s adoption of the final planning scheme in September 2019.
A business and enterprise campus and a hotel are among the four projects that have received planning permission under the scheme, Minister Dillon explained.
At present, there are no specific tax incentives announced for firms locating at the Ireland West Airport Knock SDZ, he said.
“The current scheme focuses on providing other key advantages like planning certainty and prioritised infrastructure development.
“While there are no current tax breaks, discussions at a government level suggest that additional financial or infrastructural supports may be considered in the future.”
Scrap metal collections could be back in vogue due to the soaring demand for copper driven by a global build out of data centres to drive the artificial intelligence boom.
Demand for copper will double by 2050 on 2010 figures, according to BHP, which is also projecting the per ton price of the metal will rise to €11,000 in 2025 from €8,000 in 2021, according to data from the London Metal Exchange (LME), the marketplace which traditionally sets global metal prices.
