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The internal turmoil in the Beef Plan Movement has intensified as the group’s co-chairs and members of its national committee remain at loggerheads ahead of planned elections.
On Saturday morning, a message was sent to all Beef Plan WhatsApp groups from joint chairs of the organisation Eamon Corley and Hugh Doyle.
The co-chairs informed members that the Beef Plan’s national committee, regional committees and sub committees were being stood down until an investigation was conducted into alleged “disciplinary issues”.
Rules
Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Hugh Doyle said the issues related to the group’s rules of governance which were drafted at the end of 2019. He said the committee had proposed amendments to the document and these were then circulated in several WhatsApp groups.
Doyle said the rules were the responsibility of the four directors of the Beef Plan Movement company limited by guarantee, not the committee.
“In any organisation we all have to abide by rules,” he said.
Several members of the national committee issued a statement following a meeting in Portlaoise on Saturday night. The statement said elections planned for 15 January should be deferred until all concerns are addressed.
Concerns
Speaking to the Irish Farmers Journal, Dermot O’Brien, a member of the committee and regional chair, said an EGM had been called for 26 January.
O’Brien said Hugh Doyle, Dermot Brennan, Kieran Logue, Enda Fingleton, Alan O'Brien, David Whelehan, Eoin Donnelly, Helen O’Sullivan and Michael Rafferty were also on the committee.
Neither Corley nor Doyle were in attendance at the meeting.
O’Brien said it was “regrettable” that the co-chairs had closed the group’s WhatsApp pages. He said the committee had not been informed of the move or that it would be stood down.
“The Beef Plan Movement is a new organisation. It’s a farmer representative body that has made huge inroads over the past 12 months but it is fair to say that every new organisation will have teething problems.
“Hopefully the EGM will help to reconcile any difficulties at this moment in time and we can move forward and have a unified approach in 2020.”
Doyle stated that there were no plans to postpone the elections.
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