Sir, I must take issue with your Agricultural Correspondent, Sean MacConnell, in his article (October 26th) that the Irish Farmers' Association is "essentially a Fine Gael organisation". This is utterly untrue, and quite unfair to the association's efforts right from its inception to be vigorously non political.
The rules allow IFA officers no involvement in party politics. In IFA, both voluntary people and full time staff work together to argue their case in an equally resolute way, no matter with which political party.
Being non party political has not been achieved easily. The association, from its earliest days, has tried to draw together the many strands of Irish farming and different commodity groupings, farmers big and small, different politics and different religions. in a country where this has so often proved so difficult, I suggest that the IFA has achieved this unity of identity outstandingly well better than any other similar national organisation.
Yours, etc.,
County chairman,
Kildare/West Wicklow IFA,
Livestock Mart,
Barrack Street,
Kilkenny.