Six farmers including the IFA's deputy president have escaped a conviction for breaching competition law over their involvement in a protest at Drogheda Port which prevented wheat being unloaded from a ship.
The defendants appealed convictions imposed at Drogheda District Court to Dundalk Circuit Court for intending to distort competition in the wheat market.
The IFA deputy president, Mr Ruaidhrí Deasy, IFA's grain committee chairman Mr Paddy Harrington; the secretary of the IFA grain committee, Mr Fintan Conway; the then Louth IFA chairman, Mr Raymond O'Malley; the Louth IFA grain committee chairman, Mr George O'Brien, and Mr Colm McDonnell from Tullyallen, Drogheda, were charged with implementing an agreement with others at Drogheda Port, Tom Roe's Point, to distort competition in the wheat trade within the State on August 31st, 2002, by preventing the unloading of cargo from the ship.
Apart from Mr Harrington, they were also charged with committing the same offence at the Boyne Valley Hotel two days later.
Judge Raymond Groarke dismissed the summonses relating to the port protest saying the Competition Authority case had not been proven. He also said there was no evidence of Mr O'Malley and Mr Conway being involved in the Boyne Valley meeting.
He ruled that the remaining three defendants, Mr Deasy, Mr O'Brien and Mr McDonnell, were guilty of the second charge relating to the Boyne Valley Hotel on September 2nd, 2002.
Judge Groarke applied the probation act.