After 28 consecutive days of protest inside the lobby of Bord Bia, five members of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) ended their demonstration on Monday, after an agreement was reached between the board of Bord Bia and the IFA for a governance review to take place over issues raised by the IFA in recent weeks.

One of the five members who occupied Bord Bia, Christine Friel spoke to the Irish Farmers Journal after they emerged from the building on Monday afternoon.

“I can’t say it was a tough 28 days, there were ups and downs, but there was no fall outs and great support from home,” she said.

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She went on to talk about awaiting an outcome from the meeting: “It was all up in the air until the last hours, all we knew was that Francie would be down whenever they had a result.”

Richard Moeran talked about the support the five received over the 28 days that they occupied the Bord Bia lobby: “I cannot tell you how much support we got over the last four weeks, every single day we had support looking out through the doors from every county in the country, rain, wind, sleet and snow, they were there giving us support and cheers every hour of the day and I say thank you to you, members of this organisation, thank you for your support and well done.”

Teresa Roche said that their aim was to convince people that there is a future in Bord Bia for farm families: “It seems to have inspired all generations of family farms, see all these young farmers here behind us and it’s also inspired women to come out here and represent agriculture.”

Going forward from Monday’s development, Tom Byrne stated: “I absolutely believe it’s a new beginning between Bord Bia and Irish farmers; we have to defend the product we produce, that we are so proud to produce.”

Patrick McCormick explained there is still work to be done on this issue, stating: “We are well pleased to get to the point that we have, we are not where we want to be yet, but we are well on the road.”