Protests outside Bord Bia offices in Dublin are continuing this week, as the IFA continue their demand for the resignation of chair Larry Murrin.

The protests are on a rolling basis, and on Thursday (Feburary 5th) it is the turn of Cork West alongside colleagues from across the country. 

The National Council met late last week, and passed a unanimous resolution that the protest outside Bord Bia will continue until the chair Larry Murrin resigns, or is removed.

On Tuesday this week, the protest escalated further when IFA members occupied the Bord Bia office itself for a time.

Meanwhile, the IFA National Council described recent comments made by Minister Heydon in the Dáil as ‘outrageous’.

Last Thursday, the Minister for Agriculture said that there was a ‘complete lack of perspective’ on the matter.

‘Obviously, Mr. Murrin will be in front of the joint committee, and happy to engage in that. There is a complete lack of perspective in this debate given the integrated nature of global trades and the fact that this specific trade deal covered over 42 countries.

‘We have the IFA protesting, and the people who are protesting are being denied that detailed briefing by their leadership…farmers are being done a disservice’.’

Minister Heydon continued to say that the current actions were a ‘witch hunt’ and that the issue was being ‘conflated and sold in a soundbite way to farmers’.

‘The chairman of Bord Bia has overseen exponential growth in the value of Irish food exports year on year…When the CSO figures come out in the next couple of weeks, we will see more record growth. This is money going straight into farmers’ pockets. They benefit from the integrated nature of global supply chains.’

Following these statements, IFA President Francie Gorman said that it was in fact the minister who ‘rushed to judgement’ by publicly supporting the chair of Bord Bia.

‘The National Council were very angry about some of the comments by the Minister which were designed to undermine our democratic association.’

‘I have never seen farmers so resolute on an issue and they will not be distracted by these attempts to smear the work of the organisation’ he said.

‘It is untenable that farmers would face stricter quality assurance controls and the chair of Bord Bia thinks it’s acceptable to import Brazilian beef which is nowhere near those standards. Larry Murrin should do the right thing and leave his role. Only then can confidence be re-built in Bord Bia.’ 

The protest continues this week, as the IFA reiterated its calls for Mr Murrin’s resignation as well as demand that the chairman declare whether Dawn Farm Foods, or any other company he is involved with, imports poultry meat from Brazil.

For his part, Larry Murrin said in an interview with the Irish Farmer’s Journal last week that the issue was ‘massively delicate, which has been wildly inflated beyond its true meaning’. He claimed he had offered to talk with the president of the IFA, as well as the chair of the ICMSA.

‘This emotional nonsense that’s going on, it’s not a new fact’ said Murrin.

He said that last year, the Brazilian beef imports accounted for less than 1% of Dawn Foods’ beef supply, less again in 2024, and none at all in the four years before that.