DEAR EDITOR

The bedrock on which all volunteer bodies and organisations in Ireland have been constructed has been their non-political, non-partisan, open to all approach that makes all members feel valued and welcomed.

The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) often stood accused of being the organisation representing ‘big farmers’ by bodies both inside and outside agriculture.

But the utterly destructive, ill-considered and reckless approach of former presidents of the IFA – Donie Cashman, Tom Clinton, John Donnelly, Tom Parlon, John Dillon, John Bryan, Eddie Downey, Joe Healy and Tim Cullinan – to unilaterally endorse the Fine Gael presidential candidate Heather Humphreys is quite extraordinary and destructive to the ethos and future of the IFA and an abject betrayal of the ideals of its founding fathers.

It will be argued that the former presidents are now private citizens and free to endorse who they wish, but it’s because they were former leaders of the IFA that they were courted by Fine Gael who still believe that they have some influence over the farming vote.

In my opinion, it perhaps illustrates in a public way the slow disintegration into irrelevance of that once powerful farming voice with the splintering of the block and growth of numerous, less-effective representative farming bodies under the stewardship of those same presidents.

It will take some considerable work by the current IFA to convince young modern farmers of its ongoing relevance and ability to represent their apolitical and diverse interests and views and undo this collective sectional support for one political viewpoint to the absolute exclusion of all others.

To this end and to right this wrong and reaffirm and support inclusion and the non-political nature of the IFA and to restore confidence in the organisation itself, the current executive should, in my opinion, take immediate steps to expel the ex-presidents and have their membership withdrawn.