‘I know I will be standing up to the vulture funds’

PAT WALSHE has had an amazing farming career during his 69 years living on the home farm in Cappamore in Co Limerick – but nothing as amazing as his pre-Christmas bank dealings regarding his farm loan and overdraft.

To say he was shocked by the turn of events would be an understatement, and especially since the monies involved are minuscule when compared to the value of his 100ac farm and its dairy enterprise – the total owed being around 7pc of the overall worth of his property.

“Just before Christmas I discovered my overdraft and term loan with Ulster Bank were sold on to a vulture fund based in Belfast,” Mr Walshe explained.

“After 30 years of doing business face-to-face with the bank I was told my business was sold on to this vulture fund and now I am left to deal with a ‘service agent’ of a fund,” he said.

“I am angry that this was done to my fully-secured loan and I am worried,” Mr Walshe told the Farming Independent this week.

“Farmers are one of the few groups who were actually paying money into the banks and were servicing their loans. I know the Government had to bring in the vulture funds after the economic crash occurred, but they need to cap their activities now,” Mr Walshe claimed.

“We have seen the total decimation of our rural villages and small towns, the closure of shops, post offices, Garda stations and schools.

“I, for one, am worried that we are now witnessing a ‘flight of our land’ to these funds. In the same way that SMEs, commercial property and distressed mortgages have been hovered up by these vulture funds,” he said.

Pat has been farming all his life. At 15 years of age he went to agricultural college