There’s been a lot of coverage of Barack Obama’s criticisms of Donald Trump in recent days. Supporters of the current president believe his predecessor should maintain a dignified silence. Obama backers would point out that his comments were not made in public, but subsequently leaked.

Are there similarities to be drawn with current events in the ICMSA?

Former ICMSA president Pat O’Rourke has written a letter to the entire 102-strong national council on how best to deal with the pandemic.

To put it in context, Pat O’Rourke is not Pat McCormack’s immediate predecessor, serving before Jackie Cahill and John Comer, making him Bill Clinton rather than Barack Obama.

He proposes that the president and deputy president forego their salaries, on the grounds that they are not leaving the farm to carry out presidential duties. I know that mobile phones were less prevalant during the O’Rourke presidency of 1999 to 2005. Even so, he is bound to be aware that Pat McCormack and Lorcan McCabe’s phones will be ringing off the walls from first light, as farmers look for assistance and debate policy in the absence of the normal meetings and interactions.

You wouldn’t dose calves while fielding those calls.

In fairness to O’Rourke, he makes some constructive points about how the organisation can best serve farmers through and after the pandemic. He asks that regional development staff, who have been furloughed, be brought back on the payroll immediately to do their jobs.

Interestingly, O’Rourke estimates the savings from each national council meeting at €30,000, and that a further €45,000 is not being spent by ICMSA due to there being no National Ploughing Championships this year, citing previously published ICMSA accounts as his information source. He says they are needed to make contact with ICMSA county and regional officers, survey marts, touch base with TDs and senators on Government formation and communicate with the members relations teams of dairy co-ops.

“All of the above can be successfully carried out by our frontline staff from their homes with absolutely no risk to their health and safety,” he says.

Points well made, but undermined by the linkage to calling for the president to carry out his duties remotely without any remuneration, a call some will see as personal. The prolonged divisions between O’Rourke, Jackie Cahill and their supporters mean everything he says within ICMSA will be loaded. It mightn’t be fair but that’s how is.