Joe Healy profile: Plain-speaking dairy farmer rides IFA anger

Joe Healy’s landslide victory in the Irish Farmers Association’s presidential race represents a kick in the teeth for the establishment.

Electing someone who doesn’t hold a senior post in the organisation is unheard of in IFA circles.

Normally the president is plucked from the ranks of the IFA’s national executive, which includes its deputy president and various committee bosses.

Months of in-fighting, two high-profile resignations and a sequence of damaging revelations about executive pay have taken their toll, however, with members opting for fresh blood over experience.

Throughout the campaign, the 49-year-old Galway dairy farmer, who pens a column for the Farming Independent, played on the anger of members, presenting himself as the outsider, untainted by controversy.

At hustings up and down the country, he argued that only someone outside the “perceived hierarchy” could restore the IFA’s sullied reputation.

His relative lack of experience - a point repeatedly highlighted by rivals - was not enough to stop him becoming the IFA’s 15th president and only the second Galway man to hold the office.

The married father of three maintains a 100-acre dairy and beef farm near Athenry, with about 90-100 cows.

Like many of his peers, he has recently expanded his dairy operation only to find himself on the wrong side of the worst dairy slump in a decade.

His background in dairy may explain his strong showing across Munster’s dairy belt, which has been worst-hit by current downturn.

He has a reputation as a plain speaker and a good communicator. A current member of the IFA farm business committee, he is also a former president of young farmers' organisation Macra na Feirme and was vice president of Ceja (the European young farmers' organisation) from 1997 to 1999.

His two-year tenure in charge faces an immediate challenge in the form of former general secretary Pat Smith, who left the organisation in hail of recrimination late last year. Smith is now suing the organisation over his €2 million severance deal, which the IFA is withholding.

A High Court hearing could spark another serious of damaging revelations, sending the group into another tailspin. Equally, a costly pre-court settlement will not sit well with members, still reeling from the size of Smith's pay and pension entitlements.

He also takes over at the helm at a time great pressure on farm incomes. During the campaign, all three candidates argued that farmers needed more of the final price for their produce, that retailers were too strong, and that there needed to be greater political will to improve what farmers earn.

One of the IFA’s key policy initiatives will be the establishment of ombudsman for the grocery sector to rein the aggressive pricing by retailers.