Jason O'Mahony: 'Our 'but what about' attitudes won't cut it over climate change'

Green wave: Founder of GreenKayak Tobias Weber (right) and Dublin City Council climate action regional office member David Dodd picking up rubbish from the river Liffey as the Danish based NGO, in partnership with Dublin City Kayaking, launched the Dublin GreenKayak Initiative. Photo: PA

Jason O'Mahony

To be fair, you can't really blame the IFA for kicking off about concessions made on South American beef. If zombies were pulling themselves out of the ground and chewing on the flesh of the living the IFA would be concerned about the effect on mart prices. That's its job.

We may lose out on beef, but we'll probably gain on the vast amounts of pharmaceuticals and chemicals we manufacture, which then allows us (through income tax) to fund the Common Agricultural Policy, and overall it is not unreasonable to assume the EU-Mercosur deal agreed this week will be of more good than harm to an exporting nation like us.