A number of officers in the Kerry Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) Executive have said that a disciplinary procedure launched against some of its members has “tarnished” the executive.
Several officers held a meeting recently on this topic and other issues plaguing the county executive.
It is unclear if the meeting has official standing, as it was not called by the county chairperson Kenny Jones.
However, in the minutes of this meeting, the officers involved said that “all attempts to hold a county officers meeting had been exhausted”.
The minutes said: “The county chairperson has continued to refuse to engage on this over many months and has refused to hold [a meeting].”
They also said that Jones had been invited to the meeting.
Outside of the disciplinary procedure, several other matters came up for discussion, including the Agri Climate Rural Environment Scheme (ACRES); slurry storage; carbon credits; a lack of support for sucklers and sheep; slurry spreading closing dates; and the 25% emissions reduction target for agriculture.
The officers involved in the meeting said “these important issues should have been highlighted at a county offices meeting”.
These officers also said they were frustrated over “the numerous unfulfilled positions” on the executive, namely vice-chairperson, sheep chairperson, environment chairperson, and pig chairperson.
The officers in attendance said that, while these commodity positions are unfilled, “essential information” on these sectors was not being fed back to the farmers they represent.
Regarding the disciplinary matter involving a number of officers, all those who took part in the meeting agreed that the issue “should have been dealt with within the county through mediation”.
Former IFA Kerry chairperson Pat O’ Driscoll was at the meeting, and he was asked if he would be willing to mediate the disagreements within the executive.
O’Driscoll said he would be willing to do so “provided that all parties were in agreement and that it wouldn’t undermine due process”.
It is understood that a meeting of the IFA National Council will discuss this issue at a meeting on October 24.
The Kerry officers who held the recent meeting called for this matter to be taken off the agenda of the national meeting “to see if a solution can be found within the county that will unite the county executives to come behind the county chair”.