Irish Farmers’ Association caught in crosshairs and a no-man’s land after losing its way

There will be little sympathy for former IFA General Secretary Pat Smith, who received a well-buttered exit, says Gerard Howlin.

AFTER the well-buttered exit of Pat Smith from the IFA, sympathy will be scant. It’s the problem of representative associations and most charities, that the people working in them are invariably considered underworked and overpaid by some of their membership. ‘Head-office’ is code for euphemisms from useless, to uppity and unaccountable.

‘Our subs pay their wages’, members say openly and more frequently under their breath. ‘They’ are living in clover on our hard labour. Doubtless there is truth in all of this, some of the time. Appreciation is seldom the perfume from bouquets thrown at full-time paid staff in head office.