DEAR SIR:

As a long-standing IFA member and an Irish Farmers Journal reader, I wish to express my disappointment at the Irish Farmers Journal’s contribution to the sensationalisation of “a remark made” by one of the candidates in the IFA Ulster North Leinster regional chair election. The publishing of same while the election was still ongoing was neither sensitive or fair to a man volunteering himself for unpaid service. The innocence of the “remark” is in the preface “I am going to crack a joke”. The Co Cavan candidate James Speares is a decent, honourable and often humorous man who has served farmers, the IFA and his community well. May he continue to do so.