Now that he has exited the beef business, I understand that Bert Allen is ready to roll up his sleeves and start calving cows. The former Slaney Foods owner, who featured at number 28 in the Sunday Independent Rich List, has spent the last two years building a dairy enterprise on the family lands at Ballywalter. But this is no ordinary dairy enterprise; over 400 high-genetic merit cows have been imported from Holland and the herd will be housed all year round in new purpose-built sheds and will be milked by an army of robots. With an estimated €640m of wealth, according to the aforementioned paper, I wonder why anyone would want the hardship of dairy farming. I suppose it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “filthy rich”.

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