O’Leary 'not actively looking' to buy more farm land

Michael O’Leary doesn’t especially want to buy more land, but if a farm near Gigginstown came on the market, he would be interested.

Speaking to the Irish Independent in an interview published on YouTube at the weekend, he said he would not be interested in buying land far from his base, “but if 30 acres came up beside one of my existing farms, or 100 acres beside one of them, would I buy it? Yes, I would.

“But I’m not actively interested in looking for... I’m not going out there trying to buy land. I was fortunate last year that very close to me in Gigginstown, 250 acres of essentially tillage land came up for sale, so I bought it.

“I think I paid about 16 grand an acre for it. It’s all gone to people who have been selling their farm, and I will look after it and mine, those farms, for the next, hopefully, 20 or 30 years. Am I trying to get to 3,000 acres or 4,000 acres or 10,000 acres? No, I’m not.”

He said he has enough land, but if “somebody is selling a decent field beside one of my existing farms, I’ll add to it. I think there’s a 30-acre field in Macetown, which is only about 8 kilometers away from me, I’m not interested in it. It’s not close to me.”

“I’m very happy where I am now. I have a nice size of operation. I don’t particularly want the Angus herd to get any bigger than that. I have tillage land, but I mean, I’m never going to be a full-time tillage farmer either.”