Sir, – In an otherwise excellent article (Opinion, November 23rd) on the salary of IFA general secretary Pat Smith, John McManus misses the obvious when he opines "perhaps the most interesting question raised by the departure of Smith is why his members were unhappy about his pay."
The answer of course is the collapse in milk prices from an average of 39 cent per litre last year to just 26 cent per litre at present. This has left the most profitable and commercially oriented of sectors within farming looking for a scapegoat in post-quota Ireland. And the pain is real; many dairy farmers, big and small, have literally had the rug pulled out from under them and are struggling all of a sudden to survive.
European Commissioner Phil Hogan seems to have developed Teflon-like capabilities in his new post with the result that dairy producers are looking for answers closer to home.
And their concerns are not unfounded. The issues within FBD Holdings (also headquartered in the Irish Farm Centre) and the departure recently of their long-standing chief executive officer after numerous profit warnings and a collapse in its share price clearly shows that the cream has gone sour at the helm of Irish farming.
Smith may have been paid an exorbitant salary but as in a similar situation with the chief executive of the FAI, nobody really questioned the remuneration packages until the results stopped flowing.
Farmers, though, are less likely to suffer at the hands of those that purport to represent them especially when it’s their money that pays their wages.
As a bleak Christmas approaches for yet another sector of our community, one might also wonder if Fine Gael, a party traditionally supported by larger farmers, may be next in the line of fire.
– Yours, etc,
TOM McELLIGOTT
Listowel,
Co Kerry.
Sir, – In his admirably clear article (Opinion, November 23rd) John McManus provides us with a plausible rationale for the very large salary paid by the IFA to its former general secretary.
The almost €45 million in additional tax breaks which he helped engineer for farmers over the past two budgets presumably does not include the benefits accruing to them from the retention of the existing system of allocating third-level grants; a paltry amount perhaps, in comparison to the staggering sums mentioned by Mr McManus.
But smaller victories such as this also form part of what he calls the Faustian bargain and are also interesting and worthy of investigation. Unfortunately, there was very little media comment on the manner in which the IFA saw off Ruairí Quinn, the then minister for education [when he attempted to link grants with land values], from his tentative encroachment on this territory as determinedly as they repel ramblers from their land. – Yours, etc,
EAMON SHEPPARD
Shankill,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – Various media have presented balanced discussions on the IFA salaries. Those in support trot out the adage “if you pay peanuts you get monkeys”, or variations of it.
Can there be no bigger insult to the unpaid volunteers who give so much of their time and effort to the organisation?
– Yours, etc,
ROB EDGE
Birr,
Co Offaly.
Sir, – I’m at a loss to understand why people were so surprised to discover that the secretary general of the IFA was earning a salary almost twice that of the Taoiseach.
Doesn’t everyone know that the IFA run this country – that when the farmers say “jump”, our spineless legislators ask “how high?”. – Yours, etc,
NUALA DONLON
Lanesborough
Co Longford.