A period of economic hardship lies ahead for Mayo?
Everything has a feel of recession about it currently.
If it wasn’t for full employment it would be easier to label this as an economic downturn.
But the movement towards tariffs by Trump, the retaliation by the EU and the negative mood music from Brussels on CAP reform signals a change that looks to be for the worst.
Last week began with news of 135 pub closures in Mayo since 2004, a metric of our changing ways of spending free-time in a new world.
Then we were met by tariff talk on Tuesday, where Irish exports in terms of food and drink look to be hit particularly badly. And then on Wednesday, all of our MEPs railed against CAP reform in Brussels, stating that farmers in the west will lose out.
They say it will be the end of many farming steads in Mayo as part-time and OAP farmers will be hit most when it comes to payment reforms.
It’s a European budget for 2028-2032 that has almost doubled towards €2 trillion, yet agriculture has been cut by 20%.
That’s the headline takeaway from a proposal that sees a trebling of EU defence spending.
President Ursula Von der Leyen has taken it upon herself to direct EU foreign policy and push spending towards the manufacturing of weapons of war while local economies in rural Ireland will suffer.
The spin from Brussels states that this targeting will divert payments to the farmers “most in need”, noting those “in need” as including small farmers, family farms, female farmers, young farmers, new entrants to farming, mixed farms and those farming in areas of natural constraint.
However, as the average age of farmers is currently 59 years of age, believed to be significantly higher in Mayo, there is a fear that they will lose out from 2028 onwards as pensions and off-farm incomes will be marked against any payments historically granted to farmers.
A need for reform of the CAP is long overdue. Farmers are still receiving payments based on output from the turn of this century and no one argued against modernisation of the scheme.
But overall it’s not what many in the county would wanted to have heard.
A sea-change has occurred in Brussels and in Ireland we have been caught off guard.
No longer will the European project focus solely on trade relations and a pursuit for peace, instead this new era will be defined by overly indulgent defence budgets to prop up industries in core EU member states.
Germany, France and Belgium, along with the other heavily industrialised EU economies, will be bolstered by this volte face, ultimately keeping them out of the red as Trump zeroes in on causing hardship on the continent.
The fact that “Ireland stands alone in Europe” is a well repeated cliché post-Brexit but as we witness all MEPs from this region stand up and blast the agriculture in the European Parliament along with colleagues from right around the political spectrum and geographic divide there may be hope of change.
As it stands there are fears that this reform will spell the end of LEADER grant funding and the end of small part-time farmers once and for all. It will be the closest to a death knell rural Ireland will have seen for some time.
CAP has been lauded for ensuring rural Ireland continued to exist and stayed afloat during decades of hardship and is a major reason for the Irish economic success at the turn of the century.
Perhaps there will be many I’m sure in leafier suburbs who will applaud this move. There is an elite who support never-ending wars, bigger budgets and are keen for Ireland to “grow-up” and ditch neutrality.
Indeed they are of the belief that Vladimir Putin is the biggest threat alive to their way of life in Sandymount and the suckler farmer in the west who works in the ESB or elsewhere outside of the farm shouldn’t be getting as much money as they do.
Rural Ireland, they argue, has been on life support for far too long and it’s high-time that communities should be able to stand on their own two feet.
That is an argument that may have some takers nationally, considering the rural outlook to this current national government.
But when the spiralling cost of living and housing crisis has extended nationally to no longer being a solely urban issue it will fall on deaf ears, particularly considering the disparity in wages west of the Shannon.
Politically what does this all mean?
Well it just might be bad news for the Lahardane MacHales 2015 Strictly Come Dancing guest judge Mairead McGuinness. The presidential candidate has already coolly slotted into the establishment role ahead of the poll.
As the sole Fine Gael nominee, McGuiness previously proved popular with farmers in rural Ireland due to her work as a journalist and later as a MEP.
But her links to Von der Leyen as a former commissioner and relationship with this unpopular EU regime will be a lightning rod for opponents in the whistle-stop autumnal campaign.
Expect a great deal of spin to include her relationship with top dogs in Brussels as a good thing and her influence will help to support Ireland in negotiations.
As budget speculation season begins in earnest, like back to school paraphernalia in supermarkets, it gets earlier and earlier every summer.
There is a signal from government that investment in infrastructure and building will hold sway as opposed to helping the more than a quarter of a million struggling to keep the lights on.
What is it that governments do in recessions? Besides austerity the other way economists view as an option of staying afloat is to direct spending on capital projects to keep society above water.
Much like CAP reform, this infrastructural spending is well overdue. Ireland looks like a third world country with first world incomes.
But when we see graduate jobs in white-collar firms being hoovered up by AI, there is an understanding of rolling recessions throughout many industries but without a critical mass of people impacted.
Are the good prices for farmers this year a final hurrah for many?
Possibly, but without a full understanding of what is happening economically there is a nervy sense on the ground that we are in for a period of economic hardship ahead.