Food review spurs farmers' protest outside Bord Bia chief's Dublin restaurant

A GROUP OF farmers is currently protesting outside the Dublin restaurant part-owned by the chief of Bord Bia, Larry Murrin.

SOLE Seafood and Grill on Drury Street, a busy area in the city centre, has received a protest made up of around 40 farmers (according to the Irish Farmers’ Association) after the Irish Times published a food review on the restaurant’s offerings.

Headlined ‘I’m in shock – €35 for chicken supreme using non-free-range Dutch chicken’, the review included mention of the origin of the meats and fish served at the establishment. Sea bass was from Spain, Greece or Turkey, Cajun chicken was Polish, and tiger prawns included in a chowder were from Bangladesh.

Other meats and fish were from Ireland, the review said.

The restaurant’s website said its philosophy “honours seafood sustainability and local Irish producers”.

Larry Murrin is already a deeply unpopular figure among many farmers after revelations earlier this year that he had been importing some Brazilian beef for his company Dawn Farms.

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The IFA staged lengthy protests at Bord Bia offices at the start of the year as it repeatedly called for Murrin to either step aside from his role or be removed as chair.

The IFA’s poultry chair Brendan Soden told The Journal that the organisation is still calling for Murrin to step down.

“After being revealed now in the last week over that food review, I think [it's] pure hypocrisy now at the minute that he’s a part owner rather in a restaurant that claims on the website to support Irish produce and Irish producers, and almost nothing in the restaurant was Irish, apart from maybe one or two things,” Soden said.

“Anybody’s entitled to run their own private business the way they see fit. But not when he’s in the position he’s in, of representing Irish food. That’s the main cut of it. He’s holding that position. He should be supporting farmers, and he should be supporting Irish produce.”

Soden said it’s very frustrating for Irish farmers who are part of quality assurance schemes and who are told the Bord Bia stamp helps market their produce.

“Then we have the chair of the organisation that we’re all members of doing whatever he likes and selling whatever he likes, and not giving any producers or any Irish produce any support, especially in these high-end restaurants.”