IFA salaries mess is akin to cattle trampling over the silage pit

Plenty of analogies present themselves when discussing the current mess at the IFA, but maybe an appropriate one is the farmer returning home from a Sunday drive and being confronted with the sight of his cattle trampling all over the silage pit, writes Noel Baker.

The mire at the IFA Farm Centre is no laughing matter for those involved, and while the organisation has experienced crises before, never has it had a situation in which, within a week, its two top posts effectively lie vacant.

IFA president Eddie Downey said on Monday that he would be “stepping back” from his role until an internal review is concluded — a review sparked by the revelations over the pay packet that had been afforded to the former general secretary, Pat Smith.

How Mr Smith came to have a salary which, taken on aggregate in 2013, topped €500,000, is a question that will occupy minds on farms across the country, but the most pressing question in the upper echelons of the IFA is whether Mr Downey’s act is a mere precursor to ‘stepping down’.

Pat Smith

Speaking to numerous people close to and familiar with the internal workings of the IFA yesterday, there was sympathy for Downey.

Smith, a commanding figure widely seen as having done a good job, certainly up to recent times, had taken over the general secretary role in 2009 from his predecessor, Michael Berkery, a legendary figure who held the role for 25 years.

As many pointed out yesterday, the real power within the IFA is whoever occupies the general secretary slot — they are effectively the CEO of a huge lobby group with 88,000 members and offices at home and in Brussels. By contrast, whoever the president of the day is has, almost literally, just stepped off the tractor. They are the frontman, the touchstone, but serve a term and then head back to the homestead.

The bough being used to beat Downey at present is that, if he knew about Smith’s salary, why didn’t he do something about it, and if he didn’t know, why didn’t he?

But various soundings yesterday suggested that the initial recalling of Con Lucey — a man with a long history within the IFA — to act as chair of its audit committee had been exactly that: an attempt to foster a new culture of transparency, something that was sharply illustrated by similar public rancour in 2013 at the disclosure of hefty salaries paid to senior bosses in some charities.

A contract is a contract —Downey was not in situ when Smith was first granted significant pay increases in the years since 2009, when he began the role on €250,000. Should former IFA presidents and treasurers be queried about who knew what, and when?

Yet, in retrospect, the moment when the cattle broke through the gate in this particular farrago may have been in the immediate aftermath of Lucey’s resignation from his audit committee role in September last year, when he cited “unacceptable interference” by Smith in his work. It was at this point, in the view of some, that Downey et al could have made a stronger intervention on his behalf.

Instead, the members of the IFA Council were still not privy to the level of Smith’s salary, with matters coming to a head earlier this month with disclosures to the media. Downey, as figurehead, is seen by many furious members as having mishandled the situation.

Eddie Downey

Any report by the now- recalled Lucey next month will not ask for any heads on platters, so it remains to be seen whether, with the scent of blood in the nostrils, some members demand it. If so, it would mean two senior full-time positions in the country’s largest farming organisation need filling — may be the masking tape to fill the holes on the silage pit.