A Galway farmer has succeeded in keeping alive part of his High Court case against the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine over EU farm payments he says are being withheld from him.
The Court of Appeal ruled that John Joseph Boyle’s pleaded claim concerning those payments disclosed a possible cause of action and should not have been struck out with the rest of his case against the State defendants.
Mr Boyle began proceedings in 2022 against 18 defendants, including State bodies, banks, accountants and members of his family. His claims arose from a long-running dispute concerning family farmland, farming arrangements and his parents’ estates.
Much of his case against the Department centred on his assertion that, when he was 16 in 1992, he was coerced into arrangements which allowed him to obtain a herd number and milk quota and which later amounted to “modern day slavery”.
Ms Justice Caroline Faherty rejected that part of the case. She said the granting of a herd number did not, as a matter of law or fact, amount to slavery or servitude by the Department. Even if such a claim could otherwise have been made, it would have arisen decades ago and was now statute-barred, meaning it was brought outside the legal time limit.
The position was different, however, regarding EU farm payments. Mr Boyle relied on a Department letter dated 24 January 2019 stating that an application to transfer 74.10 payment entitlements, with a total value given as €16,488.73, had been successful. He claims payments due to him were then withheld.
The Court of Appeal held that this allegation could not be dismissed at this preliminary stage and directed that the Department remain a defendant to answer it.
By contrast, the court upheld the striking out of Mr Boyle’s claims against the Property Registration Authority and Registry of Deeds, finding that allegations of fraud and collusion were vague and insufficiently particularised.
Costs were left for a later hearing.