Kerry co-op board member and dairy farmer from the Cork-Limerick border Tim Connell said he got “an awful shock” when the news about the Kerry shares broke.

Having received two phone calls about it before he got home to open his post, he knew what his letter would contain.

“I got home at 11pm on Monday night, and I hadn’t the stomach to open it,” he said. “It was Tuesday morning after the breakfast before I opened it and my bill came to €23,860. I had roughly 100,000 gallons that I got 100 shares on in those years.

“When it showed up in the milk statement, I assumed the accountant would pick up on it, and when I sold a few [shares] I paid capital gains tax on them.”

The timing of this couldn’t be worse for farmers “who have just paid tax for this year, the preliminary for next year and are going drying off cows so we won’t have any milk cheques coming in until the end of March”.

Connell and his son Ned have invested heavily on the farm, which will calve down 90 Jersey cows in the spring.

“We’d have a nice bit of a mortgage each month, and we bought a new slurry tank there recently as well,” he says.

With less than 14 days before his deadline to pay, Connell is hoping the co-op’s plan to engage with Revenue will give affected suppliers more time to prepare for the bill.

“The feeling with the co-op is that Revenue could just pursue one case. My plan is to wait – for the time being, anyway.”

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