Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-01-29 ============================================================ Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow We will not remove the chair. The Deputy has come for a head and he is not getting one. That is the position of the Government of Ireland. This is a Government that follows due process. This is a Government that does not decide that protest removes people from office. This is a Government that listens and engages. We believe that if a person puts up their hand for public service, which is what serving on a commercial semi-State board is, and makes a positive contribution, then they have the support of the Government. The Sinn Féin position on this has not involved looking for explanations or facts. Its deputy leader is not here today, but he was here last week. Before the board meeting had even taken place, Sinn Féin wanted the chair of Bord Bia gone. It did not even want the meeting to take place. The position was "Go. Off with his head" before there was any chance to engage at all. I said to Deputy Doherty then what I say to Deputy Carthy now. Conflicts of interest and perceived conflicts of interest are always important to raise in any corporate governance structure - 100% - but it is also important that processes are followed and that people are given an opportunity to discuss information. I will get to that in a moment. I believe there is information and complexity here that are deliberately being overlooked - possibly even suppressed - in Sinn Féin's presentation of this situation. Mr. Murrin appeared before the board last week. That was the right thing to do. He is the chair of the board. He answered all the questions board members had and had the support of the overwhelming majority of the board of Bord Bia. I understand that he is happy to appear before the Oireachtas agriculture committee, and he should do so. Again, that is an important process. The committee is the right place for the people's representatives, including those from the Deputy's party, to have the opportunity to probe, ask questions, discuss and see, beyond social media posts and gut instinct, whether there is an issue here or whether the chairman actually has a robust and credible explanation. The Oireachtas agriculture committee either has invited or is about to invite the chair to attend a meeting. I know he is willing to attend. A date is being arranged. I hope that meeting can take place next week. It would be helpful for everybody to have a proper, thorough examination. I agree with the Deputy that there are more important issues we should be discussing on the floor of the Dáil today, including bluetongue, which deserves more than a passing reference, the Common Agricultural Policy and the fact that significant parts of the country are under water. Let the agriculture committee do its job, rather than having a rinse and repeat of the same question I was asked last week. The Government's position has not changed. I also want to say that Bord Bia and its chairman, Mr. Murrin, have presided over massive growth in Irish exports. Does that count for anything in Sinn Féin's book? We have not seen the full figures for 2025 yet, but I will be surprised if the value of Irish food exports does not exceed €20 billion. That is a remarkable achievement and would be a new record for our largest and oldest indigenous industry. There is complexity involved in any trade deal. The Deputy is around here long enough to know that in 2008, when we had the pork dioxin problem, there was a global recall of Irish pork and contingency plans were needed. In any major global deal, contingency plans are needed. To win major global deals that benefit the Irish economy, Irish workers and Irish taxpayers, we have to have a contingency plan. If Sinn Féin's position is that a food company cannot have a contingency plan in place, then that company cannot compete. If Sinn Féin's position is that if a person is running a food company that has a contingency plan in place in case anything goes wrong with Irish produce and there is a recall, that person cannot be on the board of a semi-State, then I believe our commercial semi-States would be the worse for that. I hope it emerges at the committee that Irish farmers have benefited significantly from the deal this company, Dawn Farm Foods, has in place. The position of the Government is clear. We look forward to an opportunity for the agriculture committee to pursue this. I would also ask the IFA and ICMSA to take up the offer of meeting with the chair of the board. Every country chair in the IFA is welcome to meet, together or on their own, with the chair of Bord Bia. It is very disappointing that the IFA has not taken up that offer. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-29/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-29