WEXFORD IFA Chairman Pat Murray has said that the IFA must turn over a clean sheet and endeavour towards having a fully transparent organisation in the future.

Mr. Murray was commenting in the wake of the recent scandal which engulfed the Irish Farmer’s Association, one of the biggest representative and lobby groups in the country. It emerged last week that the IFA general secretary Pat Smith received pay packages totalling almost €1 million in 2013 and 2014 and is set to receive severance pay totalling almost €2 million, with €1 million paid in a lump sum.

The scandal has also seen the resignation of IFA President Eddie Downey who earned €147,000 per year in his role.

The Wexford Chairman, who has a farm in Monaseed, said that he was apologising to the 3,500 members of the IFA in Co. Wexford and added that he had not been aware of what was going on in the higher sectors of the organisation.

“The pay levels were unacceptable and we are very disappointed with what has gone on. Our members are expressing their views and are understandably very angry.”

He added that a good few people had pulled their payment of levies at factories and he said he did not blame them as they were understandably annoyed: “The trust that people put in the organisation has been broken and people are disgusted.”

However, the North Wexford man urged farmers to hold off on cancelling membership until after the investigative report by the organisation’s former chief economist Con Lucey which should reveal any potential further discrepancies in the running of the organisation.

“That report is due on December 15 and, from that, we will expect to have a bigger role in how the organisation is run at the grass-roots level. There were issues six years ago when a Chief Executive of the organisation was employed and people felt that the organisation lost touch with the members on the ground.”

He added that considering the pressures faced by farmers, the payment of such excessive wages was completely unacceptable.

But he remarked that the IFA was a strong lobby group, one of the best in Europe and it needed to remain that strong and that meant having full transparency going forward.

“I want to see the organisation going back to dealing with the issues of the day and fighting for farmers’ rights because there are a lot of difficulties at the moment.”

He added that the issue of the €1 million lump sum severance pay was something that was not a done-deal as he believed the National Council would have rejected such a payment and he expected that the issue could end up before the courts.

When asked if he had confidence in the IFA board, he said he believed a spate of resignations would cause huge complications and he felt that no such move should be made until after the Lucey report. He believed the best course of action would be to push the upcoming IFA election out until the spring to allow people both to digest the report. He added that emotions would still be running high if the election went ahead at an earlier date.

“But there are certainly questions to ask and answers for the board to give. This situation has to be resolved and I think there will need to be a shake-up across the board but not until after the report gives us all of the facts.”