Close to being irrelevant, as far as the question is concerned (6)
I believe the answer is:
beside
'close to' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'irrelevant as far as the question is concerned' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'is' could be 'be' and 'be' is present in the answer.
The remaining letters 'side' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
'being' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for beside that I've seen before include "Next to - compared with" , "Next door to" , "- - the point" , "Adjacent to" , "Neighbours" .)