The Dealer saw a recent and interesting registration in the Companies Registration Office for Professional Agricultural Contractors of Ireland as a business name for a new business partnership registered at an address of Western Auto Building, Oranmore Business Park, Oranmore, Co Galway, operating as a business and management consultancy.

The registration took place on 16 December 2014 by Thomas Murphy (AKA Tom Murphy) with a Derrydonnell, Oranmore address and Michael Sheehan of Boherduff, Clonmel, Co Tipperary, who are known by agricultural contractors as the director and chair respectively of PAC Ireland, one of the country’s two agricultural contractors associations.

Previously, a company in which Tom Murphy was a director, called Wisdom Advisors Ltd, held a business name called Professional Agricultural Contractors of Ireland and the nature of the business was described as a trade association. Tom’s (73) new business entity does not have limited company status and trades as a partnership.

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Tom has registered a number of business names for contactor organisations in his time, including the original Irish Association of Agricultural Contractors (IAAC) back in 1994 from his Dublin office.

In addition, PAC Silage Contracts Ltd was set up and traded from 2001 to 2005 with a Waterford address. For a period, Tom also managed the British National Association of Agricultural Contractors (NAAC) concurrent with the Irish operations.

Today, the organisation operating as Professional Agricultural Contractors of Ireland, known as PAC Ireland, continues to operate from a Midlands address at PO Box 9, Athlone, Co Westmeath, where it pushed for members to join the organisation at a recent meeting in Abbeyleix.

PAC Ireland does not see itself as a members’ association but more as a lobby group, and therefore does not provide accounts to subscribers, who pay the annual fee currently set at €260.

Individual contractors who were unhappy with the way that PAC Ireland was dealing with contractor issues set up a separate Association of Farm Contractors in Ireland (FCI) in 2012.

That association is now recognised by CEETTAR (the European farm contractors’ association) as its sole Irish contractor organisation member.