About

After the death of my brother Patrick Gavin I was appointed heard keeper for the animals by the Department of Agriculture. My understanding was that I would receive the grant monies paid from the department to subsidise the looking after the animals.

I don’t understand how Mr Marren, Solicitor can permit the estate to have it both ways, and I feel I should be awarded either the grant monies paid by the Department of Agriculture for the nine years I have looked after all the animals, or in the alternative I should be paid reasonable farm labours wages and refunds for the expenses incurred in running the farm as appointed heard keeper by the Department of Agriculture.

The next of kin cannot have it both ways. They cannot on the one hand expect to receive the monies from the sale of my late brother Pat Gavin’s livestock together with the gross payments received from the Department of Agriculture, without incurring any expense for the minding, looking after and caring for the animals down through the years.

As regards ownership of the livestock, I have been totally consistent in claiming that I own half of the livestock and all of the sheep. My ownership of half of the livestock goes back to my youth when my parents encouraged me to take an interest in farming by giving me a number of animals within the overall herd which I with the consent of my brother, Pat was able to have and maintain on the lands. Over the years I added to the original stock by purchasing other stock out of my own monies and by doing deals with my brother, Pat, so that ultimately, by the time Pat died in October, 2005 I owned half the entire herd. Moreover I owned all the sheep as my brother Pat got out of sheep a few years before he died and sold all his interest in the sheep to me. Accordingly, in the referenced years for the purpose of acquiring the Single Farm payment Entitlements, half the livestock on the lands belonged to me and my brother, Pat shared the entitlements with me. There was no differences between Pat and myself in our dealings. In other words we shared the workload, we shared all the expenses, and we shared the profit and income from the land.