State Bodies
Dail Éireann — 2026-03-19
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Martin Heydon (FG), Kildare South

The board of Bord Bia met on 2 March to discuss proposals to resolve the situation whereby Bord Bia’s offices were being occupied by protestors. Following that meeting the board issued an agreed statement. This statement noted that the terms of reference of an independent governance review which I had proposed were agreed by the board, and that the protest inside and outside the offices would be stood down.
As agreed, my Department is now commissioning an independent review of Bord Bia’s governance framework. The review will specifically consider: the role of the board including the chair; composition, including eligibility, of the board, including the chair; the board’s terms of reference, including clarity in relation to corporate governance framework and implementation; the procedures for and management of conflicts of interest, including consideration of what constitutes a conflict of interest or a perceived conflict of interest as set out in the code of practice for the governance of State bodies; and specific governance related questions that have been raised during the current period. The consultants will engage directly with the board members and executive - the CEO and the secretary to the board - to seek their perspectives, especially in relation to governance issues that have arisen in the current period.
My Department is currently engaged in a procurement process for this review, with a view to completion by the end of April. Bord Bia is also progressing a new farmers forum which I had asked it to establish on foot of a five-hour meeting I had with the six farm organisations and key stakeholders on 13 February to try to bring a resolution to this. The farmers' forum is a vehicle for us to have farmers’ input into every part. Part of the recommendation from Macra na Feirme was that the outworkings of the farmers’ forum will be a standing item at every board meeting of Bord Bia and each of the six farming organisations will get to have input into that which is a key role. It provides another option for renewed engagement between farmers and Bord Bia.

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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/2026-03-19/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:45+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-19