Beef Plan Movement co-chairs Eamon Corley and Hugh Doyle intend to change two of the rules in its rules of governance agreed in December and to make an addition regarding members.

It comes as the national committee and the two co-chairs are at odds over the governance and finances of the Beef Plan.

Corley and Doyle have contacted the directors of Beef Plan and proposed a meeting supervised by a registered mediator to resolve their difficulties in order to “save Beef Plan from any further damage” by the members of “organised mobs”.

The directors of Beef Plan are Hugh Doyle, Enda Fingleton, Alan O’Brien and Kevin O’Brien.

If they are not willing to attend mediation, Corley and Doyle say they will put it forward as a motion before the Meath AGM on Tuesday night where they will propose:

“That the first order of business for the newly elected members of the national committee must meet this Thursday or Friday night with the directors of Beef Plan and agree under rule 37(x) to consult with the directors of Beef Plan to change the following:

“1. Rule 7(v) to allow for the extension of time to conduct the outstanding county AGMs to Friday 14 February 2020;

“2. Rule 15(1) to have national AGM no later than 15 March 2020;

“3. Add to each rule that all members registered up to 31 December 2019, will be allowed to run in and vote in these elections,” they said in a statement on Monday.

Elections

This, they say, will allow all remaining or outstanding county elections to take place.

They said that they "are not interested in an organisation” which in their opinion is “...run by any member contributing to mob rule”. Furthermore, they “believe that the decent hard-working farmer grass-roots members of the organisation are not interested in mob rule and will not renew their membership if such actions continue.

“In order to ensure transparency, we have consented to the appointment of an independent auditor to address all questions arising in regard to the finances of the organisation and we await his or her report.

“Such report will be presented at the forthcoming national AGM and this will present an opportunity for all grass-roots members and the media to judge for themselves,” they said.

Tipperary meeting

The co-chairs said that they were “disappointed to witness prominent members of Beef Plan travel to other counties to take part in what they believe to be mob rule to disrupt legitimately called AGMs, such as that held in Tipperary last Friday night.

“We are disappointed to note miscommunication to the media on certain matters. We strongly refute that any registered member of Tipperary Beef Plan was excluded from their AGM last Friday night and strongly refute that the former acting chairperson of Tipperary Beef Plan was refused entry,” they said.

They added that they were disappointed that Beef Plan “has been brought into such disrepute by such actions, has come to the attention of An Garda Síochána and has left the grass-roots members disillusioned”.

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