Anyone who has taken a look at the most recent financial accounts for the IFA will know they reveal very little. The full audited accounts of the IFA for 2014, where greater detail of the association’s finances are revealed in the account notes, show the IFA made a surplus (profit) of €2.04m, which was a significant improvement on the €0.33m surplus in 2013.

The IFA’s income (revenue) for 2014 increased by 3% to €12.9m and was mainly driven by increases in levies collected from farmers and a marginal increase in membership. Funds derived from membership fees account for the bulk of the IFA’s income, with more than €7m collected from a record 88,000 members in 2014.

The second largest income stream for the IFA comes from the European Involvement Fund (EIF), basically levies collected from each sector throughout the year.

In 2014, combined EIF levies received by the IFA were €4.7m, an increase of €0.5m on the previous year, driven by strong dairy prices and greater volumes of beef throughput in factories. Other revenue for the IFA in 2014 (approximately €1.2m) came from the FBD Trust, the Agricultural Trust and profits from IFA Telecom.

IFA Telecom is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the IFA with a net asset value of €3.3m in 2014, up from €2.8m the previous year. In 2014, IFA Telecom recorded a turnover of €7.79m. Notes in the full audited accounts show the IFA received more than €637,000 from IFA Telecom in 2014. The company directors of IFA Telecom are listed as Pat Smith, Eddie Downey, James Kelly and Jer Bergin.

The IFA also has an investment fund which it established in 1985 and was valued at €16.4m at year end 2014 – up 25% on the previous year. Between dividends and income from this investment fund, the IFA received just over €303,000 in 2014, with a substantial amount of this coming from the dividend paid by FBD Holdings plc for that year.

Expenditure

The IFA’s total expenditure for 2014 increased by €1.2m to €11.5m with the majority of this increase attributed to expenditure on the Irish Farm Centre building (€450,000) and a revaluation of the Farm Centre asset (€800,000).

However, aside from the once-off costs, expenditure was said to be in line with previous years. While the IFA does not disclose the amount of expenditure on salaries, the Irish Farmers Journal understands that close to €3.5m was spent on salaries in 2014.

Excluding the €445,000 paid to Pat Smith in 2014 from this figure, the average wage paid to the 70-odd staff in the IFA last year equated to just under €35,000.

2015 draft accounts

The Irish Farmers Journal has also received a draft copy of the IFA’s 2015 financial accounts, which show a surplus of €1.2m for this year – a more than 40% drop on 2014. Revenue for the IFA was down slightly to below €12.8m, while expenditure increased to €12.3m.

The draft accounts show that the surplus received from IFA Telecom for 2015 is down to €488,000, while the value of the group’s investment fund has diminished to €13.8m – likely as a result of the continued deterioration in the FBD share price.