IFA president told to ‘get up off his backside’

IFA president told to ‘get up off his backside’


Anton McNulty

The national leadership of the IFA has once again come under severe criticism from hill farmers and politicians. The organisation is seen as failing to put pressure on the Minister for Agriculture to scrap the collective agreement criteria.
The former chairman of Mayo IFA, Martin Gavin, has accused the organisation’s president of sitting on his hands regarding the collective agreement issue.
Gavin said that while the lack of interest among TDs was a problem, it was more of a concern that people in the IFA had no interest in pushing the hill farmers’ case.
“Not enough people in IFA around the country are interested, and that’s what bothers me,” he said. “We have a few county chairman in counties pushing the case for us, along with the regional officer Roy O’Brien.
“People who should be pushing the case, the likes of Simon Coveney and [IFA president] Eddie Downey are sitting on their hands, and that’s where the problem is. Two people can solve this problem, one is Eddie Downey, and he needs to get up off his backside, and the other is the minister,” he said.
Fine Gael TD SeΡn Kyne said he met with three senior officials from the IFA in the Shelbourne Hotel around the time the Government’s draft Rural Development Plan was sent to Brussels, and that they thought hill farmer would be happy with it. He said he could try to talk to the minister, but he stressed that the problem was with the attitude of the senior men of the IFA.