With dairy expansion now fettered by environmental restrictions, what Tirlán is doing is likely to be the template across the entire dairy co-op movement.
The Fianna Fáil candidate for the Dublin constituency set the cat among the, er, dairy cows, as he stated his opposition to the nitrates derogation days before polling.
The latest EPA report tells us that we are not moving fast enough to achieve the level of reduction in emissions that we have legislated for.
Farmer frustration with bovine TB controls is about much more than a loose comment in a ministerial response to a written parliamentary question.
Cow numbers are being cut by stealth, farmers say. And they are right. But this was entirely predictable, and their opposition to a cow reduction scheme has taken it off the table.