I’ve been over in Brussels for the last couple of days meeting the very good people from farmsubsidy.org. Thanks to their scraping efforts I’ve had access to the 2009 database in total, rather than the search mechanism the Department of Agriculture makes available via its website.
So, some figures. There were 137,748 payments under CAP in 2009 to Irish recipients. The average payout was €14,020. The total payout was €1,931,253,085 (€1.93bn). Here are the top 100 recipients:
The top 100 received just over €44m. The top 10 being:
THE IRISH DAIRY BOARD CO-OP
COMMERCIAL MUSHROOM PRS COOP
BAILIE FOODS LTD
GLANBIA INGREDIENTS VIRGINIA
ABBOTT IRL
R & A BAILEY LTD
WYETH NUTRITIONALS IRELAND
ROSDERRA IRISH MEATS GROUP LTD
IRISH AGRICULTURAL DEVELOP
WALTER FURLONG
Other interesting recipients include:
Robert Aylward (Mullinavat, Kilkenny) received €16,765.3
Michael Creed (Macroom, Cork) received €28,866.16
Francis O’Brien (Ballybay, Monaghan) received €80,849.71
Martin and Nicholas Mansergh (Tipperary, Co Tipperary) received €48,545.45
Noel Coonan (Roscrea, Co Tipperary) received €20,331.10
Thomas McEllistrim (Tralee, Co Kerry) received €12,313.74
Michael Moynihan (Mallow, Co Cork) received €15,507.77
And some other interesting ones:
Niall Mellon (Kilkenny) received €42,880.03
Blessington and District Forum Theatre Ltd (Wicklow) received €19,891
Thomas Bailey (Meath) received €8,513.95
One of the strange omissions, for which there may be a perfectly reasonable explanation (I’m not up on my food industry) is that Greencore, the biggest recipient in 2008 at €83,377,557, does not appear in 2009. Is this down to sugar?