An Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) review into the structures of the voluntary side of the association is looking at diversity and the efficient running of the organisation, IFA president Tim Cullinan has said.

He told the Irish Farmers Journal at the IFA AGM on Tuesday that the review is looking at an overview of everything in the organisation.

“It’s about ensuring that we can continue doing what we are doing and we all know the time pressure that’s on people out there at the moment.

“For me, what’s very important for this association, is the voluntary people working with the executives in the association. We’ve an excellent team of young staff here and it’s to ensure this going forward.

“We’re looking at diversity and, overall, how efficiently we can run the association,” he said.

New blood

The Tipperary pig farmer said that it is important to be bringing new blood in and new ideas as well. “From that point of view, that’s what we want to achieve,” he said.

IFA director general Damian McDonald said that Nuffield chair Karen Brosnan and former Nuffield chair Geoff Dooley have been facilitating some of the discussions by council.

“It’s very much a national council-led initiative. They’re not going to be handed a report to accept or reject. There’s been two special meetings of council already about it,” he said.

Diversity report

When asked about the IFA diversity report completed in 2019, McDonald said that some aspects of the diversity report have been implemented.

“There were one or two rule changes which didn’t get the two-thirds majority or some weren’t actually voted on yet.

“So that is going to be part of the review as well, looking at all aspects of our structure and our rules around length of services and so on, to see can we get more new people into the association,” he said.