Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Martin Heydon has said that a review into the governance of Bord Bia is not expected to be completed until next month.

The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) had staged a rolling protest at Bord Bia's headquarters in Dublin over several weeks calling for Larry Murrin's resignation or removal as chair of the Irish Food Board.

This followed confirmation that Murrin's company, Dawn Farm Foods, sourced 1% of its beef supply from Brazil in 2025.

Larry Murrin told the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food that he has "never been conflicted in undertaking my role as chair of Bord Bia, which is to lead the board and ensure its effectiveness".

Bord Bia

The protest, which also saw five IFA members occupy the Bord Bia offices, was stood down on March 2 as agreement was reached on an independent review proposed by Minister Heydon.

The review commissioned by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) had been expected to be completed by April 30, 2026.

However, Minister Heydon has confirmed that this timeframe is now unlikely to be met.

He told Agriland that an independent consultancy firm called Governance Ireland has been "given a tender and a contract to carry out the review".

"They have set about doing that work, as it's laid out. The preference had been that this work will be done by the end of April, but it's really important that it's done right as well.

"I think it may go a bit beyond the end of April into May, but that's not an issue once it's done right, and it's not going to take much longer than that.

"This isn't about sticking to an arbitrary date. It's about making sure that the process is done right, as it was clearly outlined to do, and that's what the organisation have set about working on now," Minister Heydon added.