For Kevin O’Keefe, Fianna Fáil TD and dairy farmer in Cork east, the allocation to Fine Gael TD and outgoing Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney of both the agriculture and defence portfolios, says much about how the previous government viewed agriculture.

“To lump the two together undermines the importance of both and says that agriculture is not important enough to have its own minister,” he told the Irish Farmers Journal.

O’Keeffe, who was unsuccessful in his bid to be elected as a TD in the 2011 general election, was elected this year, 24 hours after the public had cast their vote.

Early on Sunday morning, amid great celebration at the counting centre, the dairy farmer was elected to the third of the four seats available in the Cork east constituency. With 11,035 votes on the ninth count, O’Keeffe sailed comfortably over the 10,562 votes quota.

Politics in the blood

Politics is in the blood in the O’Keeffe family. His father, Ned O’Keeffe, is a former Fianna Fáil Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, and one of his brothers, Pat O’Keeffe, is former chairman of the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) pig committee.

Kevin O’Keeffe, who is also a member of the IFA, has been a member of Fianna Fáil since he was a student of business studies at Cork Institute of Technology.

He first decided to run for TD in the 2011 general election when Fianna Fáil suffered the backlash of the electorate’s anger at the economic crash. The party had to climb down from being the most represented in the country to securing only 20 seats.

Things were different in 2016, however, with the party more than doubling its representation.

O’Keeffe attributes the resurgence of the party to the “credibility” of its leader Mícháel Martin, who took over from disgraced former taoiseach Brian Cowen in 2011.

He says that Fianna Fáil is “a party with a heart” – something which he says the last coalition government of Fine Gael and Labour lacked.

“It’s no surprise the public came back to us in this election,” he said.

Although both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have the most seats in this general election, O’Keeffe would not support a coalition government between the two.

“I wouldn’t be advocating that, not after where we’ve come from. I would not like to see a government formed between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.”

Priorities for agriculture

As for what agricultural policies he would be encouraging Fianna Fáil to pursue if the party entered government, O’Keeffe says the priority for farmers is a sustainable income.

“Farmers must not be forced to sell below the cost of production because then the whole agricultural sector and, particularly, the family farm model, upon which it is based, will be endangered,” he said.

In terms of trying to turn around dairy markets which are suffering their worst performance since 2009, O’Keeffe said that the next government should work tirelessly to re-open the Russian market, which has been closed to Western food products since August 2014.

“The next government will need to work hard to re-open that market for farmers,” he said. “It also needs to look at opening new ones”.

Referencing the delays in getting the payments out to farmers this year, O’Keeffe said that this cannot happen again and the Department needs to ensure it has all of its paperwork and IT issues resolved so that farmers can get paid on time.

“Going from door to door on the campaign trail ahead of this year’s election, this is what I was hearing the most from farmers,” he said. “They were also concerned about milk and grain price, about the delay in opening live export markets for beef and the sale of half of Slaney Foods to ABP. These were the concerns that came up again and again.”

O’Keeffe, himself a dairy farmer on the 200-cow family farm just outside Mitchelstown, has been hit by the downturn in dairy markets but loves the job and says that helps a lot.

“I love what I do,” he said. “Even on a bad day, I wouldn’t be doing anything else.”

He is also looking forward to representing the people of east Cork.

“I will work hard for the people of east Cork, across all the sectors,” he added. “Politics isn’t an easy job, but it can be very rewarding”.

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Full coverage: General election 2016