The IFA’s Tom Byrne has called into question whether the Governance Ireland review into Bord Bia may be impacted by an issue that arose around one of the key personnel involved in the report’s construction.
Speaking on Tipp FM, Byrne, one of the five people who occupied Bord Bia’s head office for a month during the protest, alleged that “one member of the review board had to come off it because of his connections to Larry Murrin”.
Byrne claimed that the person involved had previously posted on social media relating to Mr Murrin.
“Now this guy interviewed… the 12 board members, his report held, but yet he had to come off of that because of governance issues himself,” Byrne continued.
“How a man that had to recuse himself from the process, and his interviews and reports and his questioning still stands, that’s a major question.”
Report reference to conflict of interest
The governance report stated that “at the close of the data collection phase, during the final interview, a matter was raised relating to prior connections of one of the Governance Ireland partners, who was working on the review, with associated bodies.
"Having considered the position internally amongst the Governance Ireland partners, our view was that no actual conflict arises.”
It continued to say: “however, given that this review itself concerns matters related to conflicts of interest, we considered it appropriate that the independence and impartiality of the report be placed beyond question. Accordingly, that partner stepped away from the remainder of the project, and was replaced by our designated alternate, in line with our internal protocols.”
The partner, the associated bodies or the prior connection were mentioned in the report. Governance Ireland has been contacted for comment.
Recommendations
Tom Byrne also highlighted the sheer volume of recommendations contained in the governance review. “They don’t have one recommendation, or two recommendations, they have 22. Anything that has 22 recommendations clearly points that there’s something wrong,” he said, adding, “we never questioned the effectiveness of Larry Murrin as the chairman”.
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