Important Bord Bia review is 'swift and clean', Agriculture Minister says
Vivienne Clarke
Minister for Agriculture Martin Heydon has said that it was important that the independent governance review into the board of Bord Bia was “swift and clean” and covers areas of concern raised by the IFA.
Heydon told RTÉ radio’s Today with David McCullagh show that Larry Murrin would continue to be the Chair of Bord Bia during the review, but “as a sign of good faith”, he would not chair a meeting on March 25th, which falls during the review, which, Heydon anticipated, would be completed by April 30th.
“Even if they (IFA) got Larry Murrin's head this wasn't going to put an extra euro in a farmer's pocket, but it was undermining the work of Bord Bia, potentially it was going to affect farmers' incomes and the price of beef in the spring and lamb and dairy produce.
“This has been a very difficult period because ultimately at the heart there has been a lack of information for people around very normal business deals internationally that are very much in farmers' best interest, that are in the best interest of our economy.
"Because we export 90 per cent of the food and drink we produce, this debate has been focused very much on the domestic market which is only 10 per cent of farmers' food and drink.
“So this really has been about a misunderstanding of how our international trade works and operates. And from that perspective I've worked very hard behind the scenes over the last number of weeks. I've been very restrained in my public comment because I was working with the IFA to try and broker an agreement.”
Heydon said that the other farming organisations did not protest outside the Bord Bia office, they had “raised their concerns in a more constructive manner.”
“Because of the soundbite nature of this row, there were plenty of farmers who raised concerns and asked questions but they didn't protest outside the building and they didn't occupy the building and they didn't escalate the row to something that made it very entrenched and very visceral at times.”
Later on the same programme IFA president Francie Gorman said that the idea of the review being completed on April 30th was “very fanciful.” He called for the review to commence immediately and for it to be “meaningful”.
For the chairman to stay in place during the review was “completely wrong” and undermined the review, he added.
“To be clear, whatever the outcome of it is, farmers will never accept a situation where the Chair of our food marketing board is bringing in product and is not quality assured to Bord Bia standards.”
