{"id":642858,"date":"2026-10-02T17:46:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-02T17:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/642858\/"},"modified":"2026-10-02T17:46:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T17:46:11","slug":"protesting-farmers-demand-bord-bia-chair-quits-over-foreign-chicken-served-in-restaurant-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/642858\/","title":{"rendered":"Protesting farmers demand Bord Bia chair quits over foreign chicken served in restaurant \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Farmers have demanded Bord Bia<\/a> chairman Larry Murrin resign after it emerged that a popular Dublin restaurant he part-owns serves chicken from the Netherlands and Poland.<\/p>\n

The Irish Farmers\u2019 Association<\/a> (IFA) held a protest outside Sole Seafood & Grill on Drury Street, Dublin<\/a>, on Friday, a week after a review in The Irish Times<\/a> revealed the restaurant had not served Irish or free-range chicken.<\/p>\n

The protest primarily consisted of poultry farmers from counties Monaghan, Cavan and Louth, many of whom said they found out about the situation via media coverage<\/a> last week.<\/p>\n

Several farmers called on Murrin to resign as Bord Bia chair, saying his position has become untenable. <\/p>\n

Bord Bia is a State-funded body promoting Irish produce. Its website speaks of \u201cworld-class\u201d Irish food and drink that is \u201chigh quality, distinctive and made by a diverse range of creative producers from a unique and fortuitous island location\u201d.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Sole Seafood & Grill review: I\u2019m in shock \u2013 \u20ac35 for chicken supreme using non-free-range Dutch chickenOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Speaking at the protest, IFA poultry chair Brendan Soden said the situation was \u201cmaking a mockery of Bord Bia\u201d and \u201cdamaging the credibility\u201d of the State agency.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Bord Bia said it did not comment \u201con the private business interests of individual board members, including the chair\u201d.<\/p>\n

Patrick McCormick, IFA national treasurer and a poultry farmer from Co Monaghan, said farmers were \u201cvery shocked\u201d and \u201cangry\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel that it\u2019s an insult to us, particularly when we see all the advertising that Bord Bia run. We\u2019re really supportive of Bord Bia, and we\u2019re so annoyed that Bord Bia are trying to promote the use of Irish quality-assured products, and that the chairman of Bord Bia is not loyal to the brand,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

McCormick said \u201cevery privately owned restaurant is entitled to serve whatever food they like and run their business as they see fit\u201d, but it was hypocritical for a business part-owned by the chair of Bord Bia not to serve Irish chicken.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Sole Seafood & Grill said it sourced as much of its chicken from Ireland as possible, as was the case with its other meat, but it had not been possible to source a consistent and timely supply of chicken breasts. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have purchased our high-quality chicken breast product from an EU based supplier to a highly reputable Irish owned distributor. The EU-sourced product is subject to exactly the same EU standards and regulations as Ireland,\u201d it said, adding that chicken consumption in Ireland far outweighed local supply. \u201cIreland is less than 50 per cent self sufficient in chicken breast meat.\u201d <\/p>\n

Murrin, who is also the chief executive and founder of the Dawn Farms food group, has previously been criticised as a result of that company\u2019s importation of beef from Brazil.<\/p>\n

The IFA and Sinn F\u00e9in were among those who called for him to step down as Bord Bia chairman at the time. A group of farmers occupied the food board\u2019s lobby for four weeks in protest.<\/a><\/p>\n

McCormick said he thought Murrin\u2019s position was untenable when the Brazilian beef story broke in January and was even more so now. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would like to see Larry Murrin resigning as chairman of Bord Bia,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Kevin Sweeney, chairman of Louth IFA, said farmers \u201cunderstand the good that Bord Bia does to promote our food, but when the chairman of Bord Bia is not promoting our food in his own restaurant, it does make us scratch our own head, wondering what\u2019s going on\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sweeney, a poultry and dairy farmer, said it was \u201cbeyond thinking\u201d that Murrin did not serve Irish chicken the restaurant. <\/p>\n

He said if Sole agreed to serve Irish poultry then that would \u201cbe a start\u201d, but not enough to save Murrin\u2019s position at Bord Bia. He said farmers were \u201cvery disappointed\u201d by the latest development and the beef controversy.<\/p>\n

Sole is part of the EHL group owned by Murrin and Padraic O\u2019Kane. Murrin and EHL were contacted for comment. <\/p>\n

A review of the governance of Bord Bia, commenced after the Brazilian beef controversy, found that Murrin was viewed as providing \u201cclear leadership\u201d at the State agency<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dawn Farms previously said Brazilian beef accounted for less than 1 per cent of its supply.<\/p>\n

\u201cDawn Farms is a leading exporter of added-value cooked protein, working with international and local customers in over 50 markets,\u201d a statement said earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIrish beef makes up the majority of our supply and, together with the UK and other EU countries, accounted for over 99 per cent of our annual supply in 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Farmers have demanded Bord Bia chairman Larry Murrin resign after it emerged that a popular Dublin restaurant he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":642859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[97853,15218,615,61,60,12468,9689,3773,43],"class_list":["post-642858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-bord-bia-irish-food-board","tag-cavan","tag-dublin","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-farmers-association","tag-louth","tag-monaghan","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/642859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}