I hear there was no shortage of Department of Agriculture officials in Bandon and Cahersiveen marts this week.

I heard they were visitors from Britain’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in west Cork and south Kerry.

In fairness, they weren’t the first places that came to mind when The Dealer thought of Brexit checks.

I’m reliably told that the DEFRA delegation from England and Wales were visiting the marts as part of a fact-finding mission to look at the role electronic identification (EID) tags play at both marts ahead of a proposed EID introduction for British cattle.