HE rails against EU bureaucracy and “eco-lunacy” yet Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary gets an annual cheque from Brussels for improving the environment at his Co Westmeath farm.

O’Leary was paid €12,801.35 in the first nine months of last year under the European Union’s Rural Environment Protection Scheme (Reps).

Recipients must improve environmental conditions on farms by planting hedgerows, keeping livestock away from waterways and limiting the amount of slurry spread.

O’Leary is one of 55,000 Irish farmers in receipt of grants under Reps. A full list was published last week on the Department of Agriculture’s website in order to comply with an EU ruling on transparency.

Some 14,000 people logged on to view the list on its first day. The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) has called the posting a “charter for nosey parkers”.

Farmers have claimed that the “red tape” involved with applying for the grants is turning them into “full-time form- fillers”. O'Leary, who is worth €411m according to the most recent Sunday Times Rich List, is a particular critic of Brussels bureaucracy.

And he has infuriated the green movement by calling them “hairy environmentalists” and “half-witted loons”. He owns a 200-acre farm in Gigginstown, Co Westmeath, where he keeps a herd of prize-winning Aberdeen Angus cattle.

Last year O’Leary bought a further 174-acre farm nearby, doubling the size of his holding. Oisin Coghlan of Friends of the Earth said: “It’s ironic that someone who shows such disregard for the environment in the air should be rewarded so well financially for its protection on the ground.”

In total, Irish farmers received €311m under Reps. The department has also published the names of the 100,000 recipients of the disadvantaged areas scheme, worth €253m last year, and of the 5,000 farmers that took part in the early retirement scheme.

O’Leary is not the only high-profile recipient of the EU’s largesse. The husband of Mairead McGuinness, an MEP who sits on the European Parliament’s agriculture committee, received €9,000 over the nine months.

Michael “Stroke” Fahy, the jailed councillor, got €2,684. At that time he was serving part of his 12-month jail sentence for fraud and attempted theft.

Anne Marie O’Brien, wife of horse trainer Aidan, Kerry councillors Danny and Michael Healy Rae, and Kilkenny-based property developer Niall Mellon are other beneficiaries.

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