Anger at inaction on IFA’s pay crisis

FEELINGS in Co. Galway are still running high in the county over the IFA pay controversy following  another marathon County Executive meeting in Athenry on Thursday night last.

Close on 150 people turned out at the meeting in the Raheen Woods Hotel where a motion was passed calling on the entire Executive Board of the IFA to resign and put themselves forward again for election if they wished.

Following a series of branch meetings throughout the county over recent weeks, feelings were running high at the meeting over  what some delegates cited as the lack of movement from the top in the wake of the pay crisis.

The motion will put some pressure on Connacht Regional Chairman, Tom Turley, who is a member of the Executive Board of the IFA, along with the three other provincial chairmen, the Deputy President, Tim O’Leary and Treasurer, Jer Bergin.

This week Tom Turley told the Farming Tribune that he explained in detail to the meeting the actions the Executive Board had taken in the wake of the Con Lucey letters of the late summer of 2014, including the appointment of an independent auditor, Martin Lenihan.

“If I had done anything wrong, or if I believed that there was something more I could have done, then I would have no hesitation in resigning.

“But the truth of the matter is that I haven’t done anything wrong – I just represent to my level best the farmers that elected me to the position I hold,” said Tom Turley.

He said that the motion passed at the Galway meeting would be coming before the National Council meeting of January 5 next, a gathering that would also decide the date for the presidential election.

Co. Galway IFA Chairman, Pat Murphy, said that last week’s County Executive meeting gave vent to an awful lot of anger that was still out there over the pay controversy and how it was handled.

He said that it was the feeling of the meeting that the Executive Board should resign and offer themselves for election after that – this motion would now go before the next month’s National Council meeting.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.