IFA has gained new respect after its blockade of meat factories

Whenever the Government and the social partners sat down to draw up national agreements, farm leaders felt they were treated …

Whenever the Government and the social partners sat down to draw up national agreements, farm leaders felt they were treated as minor figures who did not really matter.

Trade union leaders were the big players and were the ones interviewed on television. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions ultimately decided the issues.

There was a subtle difference during the latest partnership talks when the Irish Farmers' Association leadership came back from the barricades and a bruising brush with the High Court to claim equality at the table.

"Tom Parlon, in particular, was the centre of attention, and there was a sense that there was a new respect from the urban-based players for the farmers," said one man who attended the talks. "The use of the High Court to stop the dispute, the size of the fines imposed and the way the organisation dealt with it have given the IFA a new status in that forum," he said.

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That status was acknowledged by Mr Peter Cassells and Mr Des Geraghty, who asked Mr Parlon to sit down in future to agree areas of common interest and work together in resolving them.

Tomorrow Mr Parlon, who negotiated a very good deal for his sector at those talks, will again be the centre of attention when he resumes the presidency of the IFA for the next two years.

One suspects that his return to the job, which he vacated hurriedly during the fortnight-long blockade of meat factories, will be more of an enthronement than an election.

The organisation has already made the decision that he should continue to lead it. Through its various branches Mr Parlon, a sheep, pig and beef farmer from Coolderry, Co Offaly, was the unanimous selection of the 85,000 members.

This is remarkable in itself because the IFA is a very broad church of sectional interests; dairy men, sheep men, pig men and tillage farmers. Internal politics are fiercely contested.

But to counteract that, Mr Parlon is the man who led his people to the barricades, defied the meat factories and the State and won a victory for his followers. He also outflanked his critics inside IFA by his risk-all resignation.

Yesterday he said that on the night of his resignation he had decided that, if necessary, the organisation itself would have to go to the wall, but the political fight was so important that it had to be fought and won.

"It was a time of high risk, and the High Court sequestraters were already at the door. I had to take the risk of losing the organisation altogether," he said.

"We had thought we could continue the barricades if the fines were pitched at £10,000 a day, but the ferocity of the fines at £100,000 a day made that unsustainable," he said.

He said that initially IFA members on the blockades felt he had betrayed them by resigning, but by morning they began to realise what had been done. They had responded with intelligence and loyalty despite the fact that they faced personal liability.

He said no prior strategy had been worked out, and the time for "smart moves" to avoid the fines which had been set at £100,000 per day were over. It called for personal resolve.

He said he had been aware of a mood within farming that the organisation was not doing enough at the end of last year to counteract the bad times, and that was why the battle with the factories had to be fought and won.

A legacy of the dispute is that the IFA will set up its own bureau in its Bluebell, Dublin, headquarters, to monitor factory prices, which have varied dramatically from county to county and from season to season.

Mr Parlon is convinced the dramatic events of the past few weeks will see a strengthened IFA, with more support coming from the extended families of farming people who now recognise the importance of the industry. The IFA has also gained a new confidence and respect from the rest of society.