Irish Seed Savers apologise To Trevor Sargeant…?

I nearly fell off my stool when I read this over at the Irish Seed Savers website. Just in case it is removed…. or edited here it is for you. To the board of The Irish Seed Savers – you should be ashamed of yourselves.

An open letter to Trevor Sargent TD

Date: 9 December 2009

In our newsletter, just printed, there is an article by a subscriber to the ISSA on page 18 in relation to contaminated manure.  In this article Mr. Trevor Sargent TD is referred to as the “so called green minister”.   We find this type of name calling is in itself contaminated, and we wish to apologise to you most fully for allowing this article in this form to be printed in our newsletter.

We are not going to give you excuses as to how it fell through the loop and was printed,  it was an oversight by the editor. Steps are being put in place to try to prevent this name calling from occurring again.

We pride ourselves on our newsletters , the staff at ISSA put a huge amount of effort and resources into compiling it.  We may at times not agree with some policy or rule and we will state our case.    We also  print articles from our subscribers, of course we  can not be responsible for their  thoughts  indeed  from time to time they would not necessarily reflect the views of the ISSA but we draw the line at an aggressive tone and / or name calling, that is against everything we stand for.

I know you are busy and we much appreciate your hard work in government and your support for the ISSA.  For all of the above reasons we wish to unreservedly apologise for any hurt the tone of this article may have caused.

From Dermot McKinney (Manager at the time)

Apart from a quick stint on Corrigans City farm…. I haven’t seen the chap in ages. Either or unless Daddy is paying your pocket money…. I wouldn’t apologise for anything. Absolutely rediculous.  So called Green Minister is exactly what he is. Fact. 

And for the record – I dont know any person in this country, not one, who has NOT called a politician a name a hell of a lot worse than that. 99% most likely fully deserved.

Happy Christmas!

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