A f irst for Irish radio: Two hams roasting each other over beef !

To beef or not to beef – that is the question that had RTÉ’s Philip Boucher-Hayes and that bane of all those trendy, skinnylatté drinking, urban sophisticates, Michael Healy-Rae going at it on the wireless. It was like a couple of deaf know-it-alls blaring away at the top of their voices, each convinced of the correctness of their own argument and each showing little enough concern about the need to make friends and influence people. At least Healy-Rae is an outand-out partisan who depends on the farm vote. But you have to wonder what Boucher-Hayes’s excuse is? This Liveline example of empty, useless debate came in the wake of the Lancet report which, in effect, says we all should eat much less beef, eggs and dairy (the stuff we love) and more beans, fruits and vegetables (the stuff the kids hate).

This advice is linked to the enormous stress food production puts on the planet and the directly related issue of carbon emissions and climate change.

And the truth is, we in Ireland are in a bit of a bind.

Our carbon emissions have gone through the roof and now emissions from Irish households are on average 60% higher than the EU. Of all the greenhouse gas emissions we pump out each year, almost a third comes from agriculture.

And our enormous beef herd is particularly naughty in this regard.

Trouble is, we export around €2billion worth of beef annually, almost 90% of all we produce. That money, together with income from sheep, pigs and dairy, filters back into farmers’ pockets and then out into the economy.That’s all of us.

Rather than confronting Michael Healy-Rae with what he regarded as indisputable ‘facts’, Boucher-Hayes could perhaps explain how this benighted country is supposed to manage if everybody took the Lancet advice to heart and gave up eating meat altogher.