Tom Parlon is going into mainstream politics. After four years leading the IFA, he has a strong base from which to launch himself, reports Sean MacConnell
According to a friend of the outgoing President of the Irish Farmers' Association, Tom Parlon, the Offalyman who has led the largest farm organisation over the past four years, has had "more offers than Madonna" from political parties in the past year asking him to stand for them in the next general election.
But anybody who knows Parlon (49) can confirm the view of his friends that he is no "slut who will just go off with anyone" and know that he has as much to offer the political parties as they can offer him.
Yesterday, he confirmed that he will be travelling the political route when his term of office finishes today but he has not yet decided whether he will stand in Laois/Offaly for the Progressive Democrats or for Fine Gael.
But Tom Parlon will not be chasing a backbench job. He made it clear that he wants a position of influence when he goes into politics and will not settle for less.
There is no doubt the once shy pig farmer from Coolderry, near Birr, has grown greatly in stature over the period of his presidency and such is his profile that he is receiving serious political courtship from both Fine Gael and the PDs.
He has represented his organisation ably in very difficult times on television and radio and has been cool under both media and political fire in recent years. He is, without doubt, brand marketed.
It was not always so. The beginning of his presidency was marked with the hesitancy of a countryman trying to cross O'Connell Street in fast-moving traffic carrying two suitcases at rush hour.
Parlon, after all, was an outsider in farming terms and he had been quite heavily defeated in his first run for the top job by John Donnelly, a dairy and beef producer from Galway.
When Tom Parlon won the presidency, he took it from Michael Slattery, another dairy operator from Co Tipperary and in so doing became the first non-dairy farmer to lead the 80,000 strong Irish Farmers' Association.
There were many reasons cited for his victory but one of the main ones was his supposed militancy, and at that stage in agricultural history, farmers wanted action.
Parlon's name had been linked to the much-publicised release of sheep into the lobby of the Department of Agriculture in Kildare Street, Dublin, which proved to be a public relations nightmare for the IFA but went down very well with the IFA electorate.
While the first 18 months of his presiden- cy were low key and difficult because of poor weather conditions and bad prices for produce, Parlon seemed to grow with the job.
There was great dissatisfaction in the farming community at what appeared to be a lack of action by the IFA which was addressed by a massive protest by 40,000 farmers on the streets of Dublin in September 1989. The size of that march which Parlon admitted later had "even gobsmacked me" frightened the Government into action because they knew Parlon's threat of a "winter of discontent" was not an idle one.
It delivered a farm assist social welfare scheme to the farming community despite the reluctance of the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy.
WITHIN a month of that promise, he was back in the lobby of the Department of Agriculture in a sit-in over the prices being paid to his members for beef.
In 1999, it was the turn of the supermarkets to feel the wrath of Parlon and his troops who removed New Zealand lamb from the Iceland store in Dún Laoghaire and blockaded a number of milk processing plants supplying supermarkets.
But the highlight of his career was the beef blockade which he led in January 2000 when the IFA closed down the export industry for nearly a month and were fined £500,000 for defying the High Court.
Parlon describes that fight with the meat plants as the highlight of his presidency and it was that action which exposed his ability to the Irish public, especially through television.
His victory for farmers late last year in the campaign for compensation for loss of land through road building was less popular with the urban public than the beef blockade but by then Parlon's credentials were well established as a hard man who was untouchable even by Government.
He is currently using those same negotiating skills to secure the best deal possible for himself in the race for one of the five seats in Laois/Offally.
Insiders are putting their money on Parlon doing a deal with the PDs rather than Fine Gael because the PDs believe there is a seat there for them if they run Parlon and they are prepared to back him heavily despite the lack of a strong constituency organisation.
What is certain is that Parlon will not be bowing out of the public eye to his 150 acre farm where he lives with his wife Martha and their five children who range in age from their early 20s to mid-teens.
Sean MacConnell is Agriculture Correspondent of The Irish Times