The five Irish Farmers Association (IFA) protesters who had been inside the lobby of Bord Bia’s head offices in Ballsbridge stood down their protest on Monday having spent an unbroken 28-day stint in the reception area.

The departure came shortly after Bord Bia’s board hammered out a resolution to the weeks-long deadlock between the IFA and the agency over the controversy around its chair Larry Murrin at a meeting on Monday.

The agreement will see an independent review conducted into the governance of Bord Bia’s board, its procedures for managing conflicts of interest and a consideration of what constitutes a conflict of interest, which had been the issue at the crux of the IFA’s fallout with the board.

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The probe will examine eligibility criteria for Bord Bia board members, the terms of reference applicable to the board and specific governance-related questions that had been raised over recent weeks.

Larry Murrin is to remain on as chair of the board but meetings will be facilitated by another board member until the review is complete, with a final report is expected by the end of April.

Bord Bia is also progressing a new farmers’ forum which has been pitched as a platform for farmers to engage with Bord Bia.

IFA president Francie Gorman said after the protest had ended on Monday that he was prepared to refocus the association’s attention towards issues like CAP, TB and fertiliser costs while the review is underway.

Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon had indicated the day prior that the IFA had whipped up Murrin’s business dealings in a manner that was “reckless” and that had denied farmers details of Murrin’s situation.

Minister Heydon’s comments came after the IFA gathered hundreds of protesters at his constituency office in Newbridge, Co Kildare.