DEAR SIR: The only thing that can be said about Brexit with absolute certainty is that nothing is certain, except that meat factories will use every excuse possible to drive down price.

As I write, sterling has fallen again to €1.17 and factories are actively telling beef suppliers that further price cuts are imminent. This is being done against a backdrop of almost saturation coverage of Brexit across all media channels, not only in Ireland and the UK but worldwide. In general, the tone has been one of calamity, not surprising given that these are uncharted waters.

What is less obvious in the midst of all this media frenzy is that the impact so far is notable not for how severeis it but for how moderate it is. Behind sensational comments about how the pound sterling has hita new 31-year low is the reality that this is the exchange rate with the dollar.

The impact of this will mean that oil is more expensive to buy but for food exporters the really relevantexchange rate is sterling/euro. Even with a political earthquake like Brexit, the fall in the pound is not extreme. In fact, a rate of €1.17 is similar or lower than the exchange rate that prevailed in much of 2013. Farmers will recall that beef price for R3 steers averaged €4.40 in June 2013. This is not an argument to say that beef price could be €4.40 now but it does illustrate that other factors such as supply and demand of cattle are perhaps more relevant than the exchange rate. However, when sterling gets really strong against the euro, as happened in 2015, beef farmers do not get the full benefit.

Again when we look at other indicators of gloom, we are fed a diet of stock market collapse. The fact is that stock markets continually fluctuate but if you want a possible real view of the threat to the British economy note that the FTSE 100 index of top companies on the London stock market, is, at the time of writing, much higher than it has been for much of the past 12 months.

Meanwhile, this week Sainsburys has just splashed out £1.4bn to buy the Home Retail group. So clearly, UK retailers still have some confidence that UK consumers will continue to shop and of course, Sainsburys are customers for Irish beef.

On a different level, Minister Creed has just announced progress on getting access to the US market for manufacturing beef. This is potentially a very big deal and the fact that the euro has weakened a little post-Brexit against the dollar will help.

As President Franklin D Roosevelt famously said, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. There is no doubt that

Brexit makes things more difficult for our exports but the biggest threat to exacerbating the situation is farmers being spooked by factories into panic selling. Above all, don’t sell cattle that aren’t fit.