DEAR EDITOR: I would like to welcome the article penned by Adam Woods on the ICBF beef replacement index which leaves the suckler farmers of Ireland in no doubt what is coming down the track.

I spoke with the chair of ICBF, Michael Doran back in May when he told me that there would be a public meeting where beef farmers could have an input to what ICBF was proposing to do.

This to date has not happened, and is reminiscent of the 1970s and 1980s when beef farmers had no input, no say in the future of our livelihoods and our views will not even be considered.

I have been farming over 40 years and the reason we all moved from the traditional breeds was based solely on profitability and higher output.

The beef grid, the same as the EBI, has to be based on output giving big rewards for carcase gain and what is required for the export market. I challenge ICBF CEO Seán Coughlan to show me any commercial herd which is operating without continental cows and bulls.

The most upsetting and frustrating part of this is that the suckler farmers of Ireland were afforded no opportunity to input their expertise or knowledge.

Any ICBF ranking has to reflect the realities of the marketplace.

Government policy of a younger slaughtering age has to be delivered by financial returns from the marketplace and not forced on farmers by an ICBF ranking that has become irrelevant to the real commercial world.

If the top breeding bulls on the ICBF list are not being used by commercial farmers, then ICBF has become a failure.