IFA overhaul needed to avoid an exodus of its membership over salaries
Already there are widespread calls from individuals and IFA members on the ground for a transformation of the organisation’s transparency.
From the individual farmers perspective, the organisation seems little more than a bloated self-serving organisation populated by a cohort of like-minded individuals suffering from groupthink who were willing to let pay arrangements of senior staff go unchecked.
As a farmer, I appreciate the democracy of the organisation, from electing the PRO of the local branch to electing council and committee representatives, but the democracy of the organisation from grassroots up is in the shadow of a type of autocracy, this happens where supreme power is concentrated in the hands of a few people, whose decisions are subject to neither external legal restraints nor regularised mechanisms of control from within.
The transformation of this organisation must filter down to all members and beyond.
From an accounting perspective, of immediate concern, is the pay (and benefits) payable to other personnel within the organisation.
Undoubtedly, farmers appreciate the work the IFA and other farm organisations have done and continue to do in representing their interests.
This isn’t in question, rather the level of remuneration paid to top level staff of a predominately voluntary organisation is the issue that grates.
In fact, it seems almost a replication of the calamity surrounding the charity group Rehab and the resignation of its chief executive Angela Kerins.
The pay package for Pat Smith in 2013 is reported to have amounted to €535,000 consisting of a basic pay of €295,000 plus pension contributions, bonus and directors fees.
A pay package that exceeds that of the leader of our country, or indeed the wages earned by the president of the US is, in a word, vulgar.
It is an offence to those voluntary members who stand loyal to the IFA.
There is a kneejerk reaction maybe to abandon membership entirely, and for some members the financial saving from doing so may come as some comfort.
At a rate of 0.15% of the value per litre of milk supplied, an IFA member milking 100 cows is contributing several hundred euro in milk levies (and much more when milk prices were in better shape) not to mention any meat deductions from mart/factory sales and the annual subscription fee.
After last week’s revelations it’s easy for farmers to feel disconcerted and the very structure of the IFA as a voluntary organisation lends itself to members dropping out, taking the attitude that they might as well freeload from the farmers who are willing to continue to fund the organisation in its current format.
The reaction of the council and the president will make the difference between a widescale abandonment of membership and the successful transformation of the organisation.
The ability of the IFA to extract levies and make superfluous payments to committee members is the direct antithesis of the strength in numbers of members which the IFA represents and in the loyalty of those voluntary members in supporting the IFA’s initiatives.
The council and IFA president Eddie Downey should in the first instance apologise to its members for the gross waste of farmers’ money.
They should express the fundamental need for the organisation to retain its strength in numbers and commit to an overhaul in the way in which its funds are used and how its spending is reported.
Let’s hope all that is good about the organisation is not irreparably damaged.
