DEAR SIR:

I believe that the IFA top 20 staff salaries are still excessive at around €100,000 on average. We see where a nurse’s salary is €30,000 per year and a Garda recruit, up to recently, could start on as little as €23,000 and these staff salaries are multiples of these which just does not make sense.

The figures must be upsetting to farmers when we are on less than the industrial wage ourselves for in excess of 70 plus hours work per week and the (IFA) staff on many times our wages for only 40 hours per week.

I have noticed this for some years now and especially during the Celtic Tiger when these habits of excess pay that did so much damage to our country are still carrying on today within agriculture when prices being paid to us farmers are after falling through the floor on many products. The last year and a half has been horrendous for farmers’ income when many of us had to borrow just to survive.

In farming, we have been conditioned to accept price volatility but if it is not delivering an acceptable standard of living to farmers then our leaders should react to alter this situation by an action.

If I ran my farm this way by giving myself these Celtic Tiger wages, then I would have been out of business years ago. In business, when excessive wages are being paid it can put pressure on debt buildup, employees’ pension schemes and the day-to-day cashflow. It is disturbing to see these excessive wages being paid making a detachment from their farmer members’ income and is setting a dangerous precedent, which will keep going unless farmers say stop. We must learn from the Celtic Tiger collapse where top earners said they were worth these wages but as the collapse has proven conclusively, they were not. I believe that €70,000, including pension contributions, would be more than satisfactory in my view to pay any staff member.