Some 84% of respondents to an Agriland poll on the IFA pay scandal have said that the entire Executive Board of the IFA should resign.

The other 16% voted that they shouldn’t resign.

After over 17 hours of discussion and deliberations, Wednesday’s (November 25) IFA crisis meeting ended with the Board still intact and a presidential election on the cards.

Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, a number of regional branches had called for the board of IFA to step down.

Over the last two days, Agriland has been asking its readers to have their say on the IFA pay controversy with over 1,000 respondents to each poll.

IFA Poll 2

A second poll, ‘Has the IFA done enough to win back the trust of its membership?’, was also run on Agriland.

Some 91% of respondents said that the association has not done enough to win back the trust of its membership.

Just 9% of respondents voted that it had done enough.

One farmer who attended an emergency county meeting of Galway IFA last week said anyone who was aware of and read Con Lucey’s letter last year should step down.

“Anyone who knew anything and said nothing is guilty. They were on a gravy train and now the gravy train has derailed,” he said.

IFA Poll 1

In a third poll, some 95% of respondents voted that all senior staff salaries in the IFA should be made known.

Earlier this week, Deputy President Tim O’Leary said that the IFA is working through its current difficulties and when they are fixed there will be clear accountability on everything.

“When these problems are fixed everybody will understand exactly how this organisation is run, there’ll be no cover ups, there’ll be clear accountability on everything and we’ll move on.”

IFA Poll 3

Some 79% of those who voted in the polls said that they were members of the IFA and 51% of those voted that they intend to cancel their membership of the IFA.

Several members of the IFA also said on Twitter that they were going to cancel their membership to the organisation.

IFA Poll 4

IFA Poll 5

Some 78% of respondents voted that they intend to cancel the collection of levies in the wake of the scandal.

There has been a call for the end of non-statutory levies which are deducted without the express permission of farmers when they supply livestock to factories and marts, from the ICSA.

The call comes as the farming community continues to be rocked by pay revelations in the country’s largest farming organisation, the IFA, which itself is in receipt of substantial funding from levy deductions.

IFA Poll 6