The foot-and-mouth crisis has hit livestock marts particularly hard, as they were, according to their owners, the only part of the agricultural industry forced to shut down. For the many services which depend on the marts operating, the past number of weeks have been bleak times. There are many small businesses which operate within the farming community, often alongside livestock sales such as farm health shops, farm accessories and catering services.

    Jean Maguire manages the mart restaurants at both Enniskillen and Clogher Marts, involving six different cattle and sheep sales in the week. There’s the cull cow sale on Mondays, sheep sale on Wednesdays and cattle sale on Thursdays at the Ulster Farmers’ Mart at the Agricultural Centre and cull cows on Tuesday, sheep sale on Thursday evening and cattle sale on Saturdays at Clogher Mart.

    With up to 500 or 600 customers on certain days, the business would have involved at least one full-time member of staff and up to 20 part-timers each week, in addition to Jean herself. Now they are all laid off.

    “This is normally the busiest time of the year for me, spring and autumn,” she explains.

    “It’s a service we have always provided and we were even prepared on the Friday evening, February 23 when we got the word that we had no sale in Clogher the next day, Saturday. We had all our beef and vegetables ready. Everything is fresh, with Wednesdays and Fridays spent preparing for the big cattle sales in both places,” she said.

    Jean and her staff would peel and slice vegetables, make desserts and pastry and having everything ready for trading as the marts got underway.

    She recalls how on that particular weekend when the marts were banned from operating, anything that could be salvaged was frozen and the remainder distributed to those who could use the food.

    Now she finds her staff are ringing her up, but not to find out when they might be operating again.

    “My girls are ringing up asking me if I would give them a reference,” she explained, adding that many of her part-timers are approaching their last few years at school or are at university and depend on work for valuable financial support for their studies.

    She says if and when the marts begin operating again, she may have to begin recruiting staff all over again.

    “Our first expectations were that we’ll be going in a week or so but being realistic there is no movement and there does not seem likely to be for some time,” she said. “This is part of the community that has been forgotten about,” she adds, listing the many suppliers from local butchers in towns to wholesalers who depend on her and the many other small businesses for their revenue.