Speaking to RTE’s Morning Ireland on Tuesday morning, IFA president Joe Healy recommended the agreement to the IFA’s 72,000 members. Here is what he said:

Yes the IFA were part of the discussions. We accepted the outcomes of those discussions.

At this stage we are recommending that deal to our members, including those of our members on the gates. We would urge them to read the document, to go through what was achieved.

I feel very strongly, as did the other groups around the table, that this was the best deal possible at this point in time

A lot of sacrifices have been made by the protestors at the gates.

A lot of sacrifices have been made by farmers who need to sell cattle but have held them back. I think it’s time that they read the document and allow the process to take place and they allow cattle to be slaughtered.

We always have the right to go back.

There were a number of things in this agreement.

There are the bonuses that can come in straightaway, there is the independent review, there is the commitment to review the grid. I think the important one for a lot of farmers are the in-specs. There’s a commitment there to review the specs and if they are not needed, well then we’ll be looking for them to be abolished, but let’s do that review first and let’s get back to normality here.

One of the last things that we mentioned, and we mentioned it right through the talks, was around price and we’ve been through the reasons why it couldn’t be negotiated but we made sure that we talked about it. We met the CCPC to ensure that we were on solid ground talking about price and we gave a very strong message to the factories that there could be no drop in the base price at this point in time, because farmers don’t trust factories and if there was a drop in prices it would eat up the bonuses that were achieved the last day. But all this, and all that was agreed the last day – it’s all or nothing.

In relation to Brexit and border checks, Healy said:

That’s what we looked for from the Government and Minister Creed – more clarity around the roadmap for Irish agriculture. We haven’t been given a date.

I think what’s very important in all of this, even in the discussions we’ve had over the last few days, it’s all been done in the shadows of Brexit. There’s no country as likely to be as badly affected as Ireland and no sector as badly affected as agriculture. The beef is crucial within that, with 52% of our beef last year going to the UK.