The counting of votes is underway this morning (Tuesday, December 12) in the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) presidential elections.
The count, which began at the Castleknock Hotel in Dublin just before 8:30a.m, will include over 22,000 postal ballots from IFA members across the country.
This is the first IFA presidential election where members had the option to cast their ballots at their local branch annual general meeting (AGM) or by postal vote.
Agriland understands that almost 30,000 votes in total have been received by IFA headquarters, which will significantly exceed the voter turnout of the previous IFA presidential election.
In 2019, a total of 22,998 votes were cast by members of the IFA in the presidential elections.
At that time, membership of IFA was around 72,000 which resulted in a voter turnout of just below 32%.
IFA elections
Both the IFA president and deputy president are elected through a national vote at branch level, in which all association members are entitled to vote.
There are two candidates bidding to succeed Tim Cullinan as IFA president: Martin Stapleton and Francie Gorman.
Gorman, the current IFA South Leinster Regional chair, is a suckler beef and sheep farmer from Ballinakill, Co. Laois. He is married to Kay, with whom he has a son, Tom.
Stapleton is the current IFA National Treasurer and a dairy farmer from Oola, Co. Limerick. He is married to Siobhan and the couple has three teenage children.
There are also two candidates hoping to become the next IFA deputy president: Alice Doyle and Pat Murphy.
Murphy is the Connacht Regional chair and a dairy farmer from Co. Galway, while Doyle, who is from Co. Wexford, is the current IFA Farm Family Committee chair.
All of the candidates have spent the past number of months travelling the length and breadth of Ireland attending hustings, meetings and events.
The campaign teams have also spent considerable time phoning IFA members in a bid to secure votes.
Three IFA regional chair positions are also up for re-election: Connacht, Munster and South Leinster.
James Gallagher from Co. Leitrim, and Brendan Golden from Co. Mayo are running for regional chair in Connacht.
Mark Connors from Co. Waterford, and Conor O’Leary from Cork Central are contesting for Munster regional chair.
Tom Byrne from Wicklow, Pat Farrell from Kildare and Paul O’Brien from Kilkenny are battling it out for the south Leinster regional chair position.
Stay tuned to Agriland for all of the latest from the count centre.