An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Michael Creed, will address the Annual General Meeting of the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA), which will be held next week.
The meeting is set to take place next Tuesday, January 16, at the Irish Farm Centre, Bluebell, Dublin 12, according to the organisation itself.
On the day, the AGM will be addressed by IFA president Joe Healy at 12:00pm – while Healy is expected to take part in a media briefing following his address.
Changing of the guard
Meanwhile, a ‘changing of the guard‘ has taken place among the IFA’s committee chairmen for the dairy, sheep and hill farmer committees – with new chairmen appointed last Tuesday (January 9), ahead of the AGM next week.
Laois dairy and beef farmer Tom Phelan was elected chairman of the IFA National Dairy Committee, succeeding Sean O’Leary at the end of his term.
Sean Dennehy from Co. Cork was elected as the new IFA National Sheep Committee chairman; Dennehy replaces John Lynskey from Co. Mayo.
Finally, the IFA National Hill Committee has elected Kerry man Flor McCarthy as chairman – replacing Pat Dunne from Co. Wicklow, who represented hill farmers for the last four years.
McCarthy – who was a candidate in the 2016 IFA presidential election – is a hill sheep farmer from Kenmare.