Farmer shareholders in Kerry Co-op have raised concerns about the legality of the electoral review approved last week by the board of Kerry Co-op.

On Friday, at the August board meeting of Kerry Co-op, board members approved a review of the electoral and sub-electoral areas of Kerry Co-op recently carried out by the co-op’s executive secretary Thomas Hunter McGowan.

This review will see the number of advisory committees in Kerry Co-op reduce from 10 to nine, while the number of elected farmers to these advisory committees will reduce from 257 to 157.

The review will also see the board of Kerry Co-op reduce from its current size of 28 to 18 board members going forward. The board of Kerry Co-op is elected from the group of farmers elected to the advisory committees.

As a result of these changes, elections are likely to be held in October to elect new representatives to the nine advisory committees of Kerry Co-op. However, a new board of directors for Kerry Co-op will not be elected after these elections, which is a contentious point among some farmer shareholders.

Instead, it is proposed all current board members will serve out their full terms. Co-op secretary Thomas Hunter McGowan has proposed the reduction of the board from 28 members to 18 by a process of “withering on the vine” as the terms of board members expire over the course of the next five years.

Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal this week, chair of the Shareholders Alliance Donal Counihan said the decision not to elect a new board following the advisory committee elections could be open to legal challenge.

Full elections

“The precedent in Kerry has always been for full elections of new advisory committees followed by the election of a new board of directors to Kerry Co-op,” said Counihan.

“The legality of the proposed reduction of the current board to 18 members through a process of withering is questionable,” he added.

It’s likely that most members of the current board of Kerry Co-op will stand for election to the new advisory committees in October and thereby continue to hold positions on both the board and the advisory committees.

However, some board members are ineligible to stand for election to the advisory committees because they are over 65 years of age, including chair of Kerry Co-op Mundy Hayes.

“Some members of the board would not be eligible to stand for election to advisory boards, including the chairman Mundy Hayes,” said Counihan.

“You would then have a scenario where members of Kerry Co-op board are unable to attend meetings of the advisory committees because they are not elected members of these committees. That would be highly unusual,” he said.