Following a debate at last week’s IFA AGM, “the executive council decided by an overwhelming majority on a process whereby the nominations of the five candidates by their own county executives would stand”, the IFA’s national returning officer Jer Bergin said in a statement on Tuesday.

Each county chair is now invited to endorse one of the other candidates from outside their county executive by voting 1, 2, 3 in a secret ballot.

This process allows for five new endorsements and any existing candidate who receives two such endorsements (quota) will be nominated for the position of Connacht chair. This process will close by 3.30pm this Friday.

In case several candidates meet the quota, the executive council agreed in principle to a rule change whereby an election would be based on the votes of the members of the five county executives. This would replace the previous Connacht regional chair election system in which branches were weighted depending on their turnout at the IFA’s recent presidential election.

The Connacht chair nomination process failed twice in the past few months, first when the only candidate with two nominations, John O’Beirne, was rejected because he was not a full-time farmer at the time; and second when no candidate managed to secure two endorsements in a second round of nominations.

The IFA decided last week to end the requirement for regional chair candidates to be full-time farmers.

Read more

’I do as many hours on the farm as anyone else’ – O’Beirne on IFA rule change