The Irish Farmers' Association (IFA) has today (Monday, January 26) begun a protest outside Bord Bia headquarters.

The farm organisation said the position of the Bord Bia chair, Larry Murrin, is "untenable", adding that "farmer confidence will only be restored with his removal".

Earlier this month, Dawn Farm Foods of which Murrin is CEO, confirmed to Agriland that Brazilian beef accounted for 1% of its beef supply in 2025.

Over the past week, various farm organisations and Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald have called for Larry Murrin to resign as the chair of Bord Bia because of Dawn Farm Foods’ sourcing policy in Brazil.

However, the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Martin Heydon, has expressed "full confidence" in Larry Murrin as Bord Bia chair.

Bord Bia

IFA president Francie Gorman told Agriland that the protest, which began at 4:00a.m this morning, will continue until Larry Murrin is no longer chair of Bord Bia.

"There's about 20, maybe 25, here at the moment, and some of them will depart now.

"We expect to have a rolling protest here with members from around the country and the intention is to stay here until we get the chair removed," he said.

"To be clear, the issue here is the integrity of Bord Bia and the fact that the reputation of Bord Bia has been dragged through the mud due to the fact that the chairman is a CEO of a company that has it stitched into his contracts, that they can bring in Brazilian beef and that they have brought it in.

"The level of increased ask to comply with the Bord Bia Quality Assurance scheme is something that we've been told by retailers and processors that we have to comply with and that they need.

"Yet they feel the need to have a safeguard of a supply of beef from Brazil, where we've shown quite clearly those those standards do not apply," Gorman added.

IFA

The IFA president said that he has had "no contact" with Bord Bia since last week's special meeting of the board, which he requested.

"We were offered on the day of the board meeting that they will come and talk to our [IFA] national council.

"But to be clear, our national council are absolutely 100% behind the action we're taking here, as are our members around the country.

"If Bord Bia want to hold a public meeting and invite the board and the minister for agriculture to come and address farmers at a public meeting. They're quite free to do so," he said.

Dawn Farm Foods has said that Irish beef made up the majority of its supply in 2025 and together with the UK and other EU countries accounted for 99% of its annual supply.

In a letter to the board of Bord Bia dated January 19, Murrin said: "Dawn Farm Foods continues to be a very strong supporter and customer of the Irish beef industry and remains committed to sourcing significant volumes of quality assured supply from Irish farmers in the years ahead".

Audits

Gorman noted that for farmers currently selling stock they need to be quality assured "to be able to get the maximum [price] out in the marketplace".

"That's what we're here for in IFA to fight it as an organisation. We have the support of our members, and I believe we have the support of farmers around the country that do not want this situation to remain.

"For the integrity of Bord Bia, and that's the key point, the chairman needs to go.

"He needs to be replaced by a new chairman, and we need to get to work on the issues that were raised by board members at the board meeting last week," Gorman said.

The IFA president said there is a scheduled board meeting on February 18, but he is hoping this issue will be "resolved long before then".

"If it's not, it'll be very, very damaging to Bord Bia," he said.