It's time to say farewell as Joanne Sheehan steps in

IN one of the very rare, yet still unfortunate, moments that I overheard Charlie McCreevy delivering his budget last week, a phrase shot out at me: “to facilitate young, trained farmers”.

The rest of the delivery was, happily, lost to me but I knew I’d heard that phrase before.

It’s a Macra phrase. Invented by Macra and used interminably to hammer home arguments supporting ... young, trained farmers.