Events are moving fast within IFA. On Friday, the executive council disclosed the remuneration of the recently departed general secretary Pat Smith for 2013 and 2014. The committee unanimously voted confidence in president Eddie Downey before departing from Portlaoise. They may have felt that this drew a line in the sand, but the sands are shifting on an hourly basis.

On Friday evening, the Eyrecourt branch of Connacht vice-president Tom Turley met, and from the floor came a motion of no confidence in president Eddie Downey. Turley did not support the motion, but his counsel failed to convince the branch that it should be withdrawn. Instead it goes forward to the next Galway county executive.

The following evening, Turley convened a meeting of all county officers, which expressed support for Eddie Downey in the difficult task that faces him.

Genuine support

There is a clear sense that the support for Eddie Downey is genuine. Firstly, as an affable man, he is liked by most. If the president were to quickly follow the general secretary out the door, we would be in “appalling vista” territory – the implications for the IFA would be immense and long-term, too awful to contemplate.

For these reasons, the support is genuine, but it is conditional on Eddie Downey now taking control of the narrative. People are calling for accountability, and it is too late to respond through internal structures; there must be some public disclosure.

That disclosure must look forward, to ensure that pay and conditions are always fair, never in the president’s own words “not sustainable” or “unacceptable”. There is also a demand that they look back to see how the disconnect between the general secretary’s pay and the incomes of the membership grew to a gaping chasm.

When you talk to the senior figures of the association both past and present, a picture emerges of a systems failure. Farmers, who had risen through the ranks of IFA due to their ability to pursue policy issues, such a CAP reform, disadvantaged area payments or commodity prices, were ill-equipped to determine executive pay levels.

Alarm bells

In this regard, it needs to be said that alarm bells have been ringing for some time - Con Lucey’s resignation from the audit committee, the letters he sent to senior members, now published here.

Derek Deane finally broke ranks a couple of weeks ago, distributing assertions in relation to executive pay through the media. He deserves credit for so doing, forcing the issue to its current position.

It also should be stated Jer Bergin consistently refused to engage on the issue of remuneration for the general secretary since he became treasurer, insisting that only a properly constituted remuneration committee, along the lines recommended by Con Lucey, could do so. This is true, and there are others who similarly have worked within the confines of their roles in the organisation toward putting systems in place that would be more robust. That work must now be finalised in the full glare of public scrutiny, and the credibility of the president and the organisation are on the line.

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