The newly formed ‘Before you go to war, you need an army’ – Beef Plan Movement" continues to gain traction across the country with the group now claiming to have 5,447 members. The group seems to be especially strong in the west with Mayo now reported to have 568 members while Kildare has 48 members.

The group is organising a number of meetings to present its beef plan and there are meetings scheduled to take place in Laois and Mayo next week.

Farmers are being asked to pay €10 to sign up to the group and has the target of getting 40,000 farmers signed up in the next six months.

Headed by Meath men, Eamon Corley and Hugh Doyle, the group has an 86 point plan to change the beef industry and return more money to the primary producer.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Corley said: “The factories and supermarket multiples have [run rampant] over farmers for the past number of years and no one is willing to stand up and say stop”.

Their first task will be to set up purchasing groups in each county. Carcase trim, QA criteria and AIMS database access are all high on the agenda for the group to organise. Hugh Doyle added “If our demands are not met we will order our members to withhold cattle from factories via a text message at short notice and we would hope to be able to withhold 40% of the kill in any given week.” However the group does not want to jump the gun on this, with Corley saying: “We are assembling the army at the moment and we will take action when we have enough numbers behind us. Before you go to war you need an army,” he said.