Last Monday saw an end to the month-long dispute between the Irish Farmers Association and Bord Bia. An emergency board meeting brought everything to a head, with a governance review of Bord Bia to be completed in the next two months.

It’s understood the Government will commission the review in the next few weeks, with the likelihood of it being finished by 30 April very slim.

Both Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon and the IFA have continued to trade fiery shots in interviews this week after the resolution had been found.

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The relationship between the Minister for Agriculture and the Irish Farmers Association hasn’t been as broken as it is now for quite some time, with both parties having serious work to do to repair it. Both sides should take stock, turn the page and move on.

The big question on a lot of people’s minds is that if the review finds that Larry Murrin had no conflict of interest and that there were no governance issues with the board of Bord Bia, what happens next?

Another big question is who will complete the review and more importantly, who will have oversight of the review process?

Minister Heydon has been quoted on several occasions as saying that Larry Murrin is still the chair of Bord Bia and he seems adamant that he will be back chairing the board meetings after the review is finished.

Mending relationships

The minister needs the IFA and the IFA needs the minister to be on side, so the sooner these broken relationships are mended the better it will be for Irish farmers.

Both of these men, along with over 100,000 farmers need Bord Bia to do the very best job they can in promoting Irish food both at home and abroad.

Bord Bia does a huge amount of good work for Irish farmers and now, more than ever, we need to be differentiating our product from cheaper alternatives in our most important markets in the UK and further afield.

Shelf space has come under pressure, and reduced purchases due to higher prices is a problem that needs fixing. Bord Bia is best placed to tackle this and making sure Irish beef remains the product that consumers choose in an increasingly noisy space when it comes to country choices and cheaper alternaties.

More communication is also needed. This should have never got to a stage where five farmers felt the need to sit in a reception area for a month to get changes made.

This should have been dealt with at board level at the very beginning, and hopefully lessons will have been learned around that communication and dialogue process.

The IFA will see Monday’s side-stepping of Larry Murrin as a win, and huge credit must go to the five members who stuck it out to the end at the Bord Bia office.

They sacrificed a huge amount of family time – along with their farms – to fight for the stance that the IFA took and whether you agree or disagree with their actions, they deserve credit for what they did.

Regardless of what anybody says, without those people inside, there would be no review taking place.

It was a high-risk roll of the dice by the IFA, but they have come out on the right side of that decision and have, if anything, probably emerged even stronger given the huge support from grassroots members for the protest.

Thousands of farmers in the middle of lambing and calving took the time out to protest in the last few weeks.

Having been at the protest on Pembroke Road and attending some of the meetings over the last 7-10 days around the country, IFA members appear invigorated by the last few weeks’ events.

That energy will be needed for a few big battles in 2026.