IFA stays silent on Eddie Downey comments

The IFA was last night remaining tight-lipped after its former president claimed he had been “thrown under the bus” and his position “misrepresented” in the striking of a controversial severance deal with the organisation’s former general secretary, Pat Smith.

Eddie Downey, who resigned his post as president last week, took to the airwaves to put forward his side of the story, but in doing so, appeared to contradict the IFA’s version of the events which led to his departure.

Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Mr Downey, who was two years into his presidency when he stepped down, said he had not known the exact pay scale of Mr Smith, even though he had refused to sign off on a review of it late last year and had asked former IFA chief economist, Con Lucey, back into the fold to review elements of the pay structure within the country’s largest farming organisation.