A partner at Governance Ireland who was working on the review into the board of Bord Bia stepped away from the process over a 'prior connection' with an associated body.
The report, which was commissioned by the Department of Agriculture following a five-week long protest by the IFA earlier this year, was published on Friday afternoon.
The report stated that during the close of the data collection phase of the review, a matter was raised relating to prior connections of one of the Governance Ireland partners, who was working on the review, with associated bodies.
“Having considered the position internally amongst the Governance Ireland partners, our view was that no actual conflict arises,” the report said.
“However, given that this review itself concerns matters related to conflicts of interest, we considered it appropriate that the independence and impartiality of the report be placed beyond question.
Stepped away
“Accordingly, that partner stepped away from the remainder of the project, and was replaced by our designated alternate in line with our internal protocols. This is consistent with Section 13 of our proposal to the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, under which our conflict-of-interest policy requires immediate disclosure to the client should any potential conflict arise during the course of the review,” it noted.
The name of the partner and the associated bodies are not named in the report.
The long-awaited report found that the Bord Bia board is “very capable, engaged and committed, with a strong governance foundation with solid structures and processes”.
Governance Ireland stated that the review reflects governance arrangements that were in place between January and May 2026.
“The review assesses governance effectiveness, not operational performance or executive capability. Where executive actions are referenced, this is to illustrate governance implications, not to pass judgement on individual competence or intent," it said.
Surveys and scoring
Surveys of the board for the review, required respondents to reflect on their experience of the current governance regime in Bord Bia and to indicate their level of satisfaction in response to each of 73 questions across a range of governance themes.
One of those surveys was a survey on the performance of the chair.
The overall score out of five was 3.9, with the survey on the performance of the chair scoring the highest, at 4.4 out of five.
A score of 3.2 was recorded for board resilience and crisis management, with 3.6 recorded for conflicts of interest.
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