As chief economist of the IFA for 35 years, Con Lucey served under 10 different IFA presidents. His funeral, held on Sunday in his native Ballycorick, Co Clare, drew farmers and IFA staff, past and present, from all over the country.

He followed in a line of hugely capable and well known economists who filled the role before he came to be so identified with it.

People such as the Professor of Economics in UCD Louis Smith and Alan Dukes before his move to head up the IFA office in Brussels had held the post before him, but given his length of tenure, most remember nobody else in the position. His first president was TJ Maher, who was in office until 1976.

Maher was followed by Clare man Paddy Lane, Donal Cashman from Cork succeeded Lane and he in turn was followed by Joe Rea and then Meath man Tom Clinton.

The 1990s saw Kildare man Alan Gillis take over, to be followed by John Donnelly from Galway.

He was succeeded by Tom Parlon who was followed by John Dillon and then in more modern times, Padraig Walshe. Con himself was succeeded by Rowena Dwyer in 2008.

Meticulous

Con was very clear in what his role was, utterly committed to farmers and farm family living standards.

He was meticulous in assembling the facts around the policies the organisation had identified as important and participated in countless IFA delegations to Government departments, especially the Departments of Finance and Agriculture.

Inevitably there were different views on the feasibility and political desirability of meeting what farmers regarded as reasonable. There were intense campaigns around the unfairness of the agricultural land rates system.

Eventually farmers took their case to the Supreme Court and the system was declared unconstitutional and abandoned.

High profile

Other high profile campaigns in which Con was deeply involved in were the implementation of the milk quota in the early 1980s and the determined opposition to the unfair proposals in the original GATT / WTO negotiations.

But behind the scenes, there were countless discussions on farmer taxation with the Department of Finance, with agreement being reached on issues such as stock relief, a farm retirement scheme and the important development of a sensible flat VAT arrangement.

There were also intense discussions in the national partnership framework set up by Bertie Ahern as Taoiseach.

During the credit crises of the early 1980s, he had a pivotal role in guiding presidents Joe Rea and Tom Clinton as well as general secretary, Michael Berkery.