The final piece in the IFA leadership jigsaw is likely to be filled next week with Connacht at last electing a regional chair. This requires approval of a rule change at Thursday’s executive council meeting, but that should pose no problems. The two nominated candidates, Eddie Davitt from Sligo and Mayo’s Padraic Joyce, will then contest the position with voting taking place at five county executive meetings in the Connacht counties. County and branch officers will vote, with no weighting attached to the size of each branch.
The final piece in the IFA leadership jigsaw is likely to be filled next week with Connacht at last electing a regional chair. This requires approval of a rule change at Thursday’s executive council meeting, but that should pose no problems.
The two nominated candidates, Eddie Davitt from Sligo and Mayo’s Padraic Joyce, will then contest the position with voting taking place at five county executive meetings in the Connacht counties. County and branch officers will vote, with no weighting attached to the size of each branch.
Meanwhile, IFA president Joe Healy has been a member of the board of FBD Developments (the co-op) for eight years now, as a shareholder-nominated director. As IFA president, he could be elected to the board as an IFA nominee. However, it is understood he has decided to stand again for his existing seat. His position on that board is being opposed by a Donegal farmer named Brian Marshall. Marshall has set up a website in this regard, which sounds like a surprising thing for a farmer to do until you realise that Marshall sets up websites as well as drystock farming. He explains that he has no personal issue with Joe Healy, but he wants “to ensure openness and less secrecy”. Marshall also opposes the new FBD Developments constitution.
I also understand that the IFA’s executive board has approved a nominee to the board of FBD Holdings (the insurance company). It won’t be Joe Healy, who may feel the IFA is going to require all his time. Instead, Eddie Downey will be the nominee to FBD. Relations between the former IFA president and the chair of FBD, Michael Berkery, are likely to be pretty strained after all that has happened in the last 12 months.
Then again, FBD, like the IFA, needs full focus in the coming months, and the work in hand may overrule the politics. Michael Berkery will step down this time next year.
Read more
Full coverage: IFA elections 2016
Full coverage: FBD
This is a subscriber-only article
SHARING OPTIONS: