The IFA deputy president candidates were pressed on how a better image of farming could be communicated to the non-farming public in Dungarvan on Tuesday night.

Former Waterford chair Kevin Kiersey asked the candidates what would they do to improve the image of farming, while Breda Keane also highlighted from the floor the criticism farmers receive from the media.

Alice Doyle said in response that the media is being allowed to vilify farmers because strong communicators are not getting on the airwaves.

“If they know that you are sending out a good communicator, who is well informed and well capable of debating, they will repeat bringing you back on.

“The problem in many cases is that we have people coming on from groups and organisations that have no mandate to be there really. They’re there in their own right.

“We are elected by our members and therefore, we should be able to show that we have credibility in being out there with a mandate to represent a viewpoint,” Doyle said.

Pat Murphy said: “RTÉ are not working with us. Their coverage of farmers and their coverage of food has been diabolical but there’s more than RTÉ out there. We have a good story to tell and we’ve got to start telling it and keep telling it. Let’s start that battle to fight for food and gain the respect back.

“As food producers, I think we do a bad job at getting the message across to our customers. We need to improve on that.”