The farmers, who wished to remain anonymous, detailed their ‘shock’ and ‘devastation’ when the news broke of the misappropriation of hundreds of thousands of euros of the charity’s funds.

Last month, the High Court heard a former chief executive of Bóthar made “significant admissions” about the misappropriation of funds from the international aid charity.

The sum said to have been misappropriated by David Moloney from the charity, previously thought to be at least €465,000, has now risen to close to €770,000.

One farmer, ‘John’, from Cork said when the news broke a couple of weeks ago he was ‘absolutely shattered.’

“It’s an organisation that has been going for the last 30 years. It was extremely well supported by farmers and they were happy with what they were doing.

“I know people that travelled over with the cattle to Africa, they couldn’t get over how much the stock improved the local economy and what they meant to the people there.”

 John said he donated 10-15 cattle to Bóthar over the years but also sold heifers to people not in the farming community who wanted to support the charity.

“You would be amazed over the years at the number of small farmers with very low incomes that made a contribution of some sort, either a calf or a heifer. Farmers were generous to this organisation because they felt it was doing a good job.”

However, John said that generosity and trust has been ‘completely shattered’, and any farmer he has spoken to is ‘disgusted’ at the revelations.

Despite this, he also said he would like to see the charity saved with the support of the farming organisations, stressing it ‘must be very well policed’.

Another farmer, ‘Michael’ in Limerick, said Bóthar needed ‘a total revamp’ for it to survive.

“A whole new set of structures and personnel is needed. This must happen if it has any hope or else no one will donate to them in future,” he said.

He also pointed to another tragic aspect of the scandal, which has seen Bóthar’s most active supporters in the farming community left reeling.

“There are people that went to a lot of trouble for Bóthar and they feel very disappointed now because they are associated with it, even though they did nothing wrong,” he said.

 Michael also said the scandal will impact other charities, suggesting that people were starting to lose faith in the whole sector.

“People are worried that a lot of the money being given to charities is going in administration, wages and expenses”, he said.

This view was echoed by another Limerick farmer ‘John’, who recently cancelled his direct debit with Bóthar and said that as charities get bigger, they can sometimes lose sight of their purpose.

“My first reaction to the Bóthar news was shock and anger, like everyone else. Shock at the amount of money involved, the lack of oversight and how it was allowed to develop without being picked up.

“It will be difficult for it to survive. The concept first day was brilliant and the idea is still good, but I think there needs to be a clean sweep and a whole new board put in place. That’s the only way to regain confidence in it. A new broom is needed. I won’t be donating again until it’s got its house in order,” he said.

The President of ICMSA, Pat McCormack, said that “as always in these cases” the priority had to be transparency and the release of all the facts around what had happened.

“I’ve already commented on the reaction of the farmers I’ve been speaking to; they are very disappointed. And there’s no point in saying that what appears to have happened won’t affect the reputation of the charity. It will,” said Mr McCormack.

“In these circumstances, people in general — and farmers in particular — want full disclosure and complete transparency. They’ll want to know what happened and why, and when. And they’ll want to know whether these matters could or should have been picked up on before.

“I’ll make one other point that I think is crucial: farmers will want to see strong farmer representation on the board. Where the charity is farmer-orientated and depends to a great extent on farmer donation, then farmers expect, and have every right to expect, that there are farmers on the board.

“That space will be watched carefully and I do think that everyone who wishes the charity well — and we all do — would have to be cognisant of that”, said Mr McCormack.