Healy pleas for a high turnout at vote meetings

Joe Healy and his wife Margaret vote in the IFA presidential election at Athenry last week.

placeholder image — Joe Healy and his wife Margaret vote in the IFA presidential election at Athenry last week.

IFA presidential candidate Joe Healy has urged Galway IFA members to ‘come out, vote, and support’ his campaign for change in the farmer organisation.

Mr Healy said recent reports of very low turnouts at some branch ballots was a worrying development for IFA.

He said that there was only one chance to reform the IFA and it was with this election – the 12% drop in levies last Autumn along with the 4,500 lapsed memberships indicated the difficulties the organisation faced.

“A lot of members are standing back and waiting to see what will come out of this

election. They want to see if the necessary change at the top of IFA will materialise, or will it just be more of the same.

“However, the future of the organisation is in the members’ hands. By casting their ballots they can actually influence how the IFA conducts its business in the future,” said Joe Healy.

He said that all the farmers he had met wanted the IFA to be open and transparent – they wanted to know exactly how the association was funded and how those funds were spent.

“They also want an association that is proactive on policy, while being responsive to the views of its members and robustly representing those views. That is the IFA that I will deliver if elected president,” said Joe Healy.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.