‘People would like to get back around the ring’
ONLINE MARTS ARE WORKING WELL BUT THEY’RE NOT FOR EVERYONE
THE latest Covid-19 announcement by government last week brought no easing of restrictions for marts, which are to remain online for the time being.
Despite the lack of change, David Quinn of Carnew Mart said that he is hopeful for a return of ring-side buyers sooner rather than later.
‘To one degree, we’re lucky to have the online system that we do and it’s working well insofar as people are engaging with it but it’s not for everyone. We’d be hopeful that we’ll be able to get a certain number of people back in May with social distancing, but a lot will depend where the cases are and if there’s a drop nationally.
‘A lot of people would like to get back around the ring, particularly from the social aspect of the whole thing and we’d love to have customers back with us but at the moment it looks like, at least for the month of April, we’re going to be as we are,’ he said.
Mr Quinn said that he was confident in the safety of marts when it comes to the spread of the virus, but believes that the online offering is here to stay regardless.
‘Back last summer from June we got to have people around the ring but since the end of October, bar a week or two in December, we’ve been completely online ever since the pandemic started. During those four months last year, we had no outbreaks or clusters and, as far as I know, it was the same nationwide at marts. One thing that we have to our advantage is that our sheds are big and open, so the 60 people in the big ring and the 30 in the second ring aren’t in too enclosed of a space and it did work very well.
‘In Level 3, we could have as many people as the premises could hold at two metre distance while with Level 4, you could have buyers only. We never had that but some in the west of Ireland did and we think we’d get about 30 into each ring in Level 4 so it would be a help to us.
‘Post-Covid, even when there are no restrictions, I feel the online part of the business is going to continue to be very active and you’re going to see the online platform continue even when the marts are fully back up and running. The system now is important as it’s allowing far away buyers, who may only come to sales occasionally to tune in every week to buy cattle or sheep,’ he said.