With its head office in Ballygarvan and extensive facilities at Tivoil Port, Cork-based O’Leary Transport is one of Ireland’s leading transporters of animal feeds, combinable crops and other agriculture produce. We caught up with managing director Dennis O’Leary Jnr. to take a closer look at the full range of services provided by this long-running family business.
For nigh on five decades, O’Leary Transport has been providing excellent general haulage solutions to a growing number of satisfied clients in Cork, Munster, Ireland, the UK and beyond. Over the years, the family-run operation has developed a multifaceted fleet of vehicles to provide a full range of haulage services, with all drivers fully-trained, vastly experienced and licensed for the transportation of all materials.
The blue and white corporate colours of O’Leary Transport have become a familiar sight on the roads not just of Cork but all over Europe. The flexible fleet of lorries and trailers (including curtains, flats, tippers, sliding Skellys, and low loaders) provides a varied and flexible service to customers large and small, with a substantial percentage of the work carried out pertaining to the agricultural sector.
As members of both the Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA) and the Trade Assurance Scheme for Combinable Crops (TASCC), O’Learys can – from their well-appointed base at Tivoli Port, where they run their own container yard – arrange collection and delivery from farms, mills, docks, ships and stores locally and throughout Ireland and the UK.
Operating within the codes of practice set out by both TASCC and the IRHA is vitally important and customers can rest assured that they are getting a fully-compliant and dependable service that’s properly regulated and 100% ‘by the book’. “We’ve been members of TASCC since it was set up three years ago,” MD Dennis O’Leary notes. “It’s important to the farmers because they can rest assured that everything is regulated and monitored and checked on a regular basis.
“For example, you have to keep full records of everything that your trailer carries from Day One and this is how it should be – the farmers have total peace of mind because they know exactly what is being delivered to them and that there is no chance whatsoever of any sort of contamination. All the trailers are also regularly washed and disinfected.”
The company was established in 1968 by Dennis O’Leary Snr., who retired in 2005. His son Dennis Jnr. has been at the reins since 1999. Regarding the genesis of the bulk work for which O’Leary Transport has become renowned, the latter continues:
“We started off with Beamish & Crawford in Cork city, delivering waste drink for farmers for brewer’s grains – leftovers from the alcohol-making process mixed with wheat. For Grassland Agro, we started bringing in fertilizer in bulk from Kennedy Quay and then delivering it after they had bagged it. We still do that regularly. From December until February we bring it to them in bulk; we deliver from February onwards.”
Other bulk work includes deliveries of animal feed from ship to store for R&H Hall in Ringaskiddy as well as transportation for ADM Arkady Feeds in Ringaskiddy to Daltons’ pig farm.
The striking, superbly-maintained O’Leary Transport fleet currently comprises six artics – three Scanias, two Volvos and a Renault. A fresh and immaculate fleet is maintained at all times, the latest addition having been purchased in 2012. In total, Dennis operates 21 trailers. “About 60% of our work is agri / farm related and we then do a lot of curtainsider work in Ireland and the UK for Munster Joinery,” he notes.
O’Leary Transport also provides a specialised container shipping service. This includes toys for World of Wonder at Christmas and silage wrap to co-ops island-wide during silage season; salt for use on roads and also to Dairygold in Middleton for use in their butter; the export of minerals for animal digestion from Castletownbere to destinations worldwide. They also bring in bulk powder minerals from Kennedy Quay for Nutribio.
At present, gainful employment is provided to a crew of nine and Dennis is pleased to report that there’s enough work on the horizon to keep things ticking over nicely: “It’s keeping us going anyway,” he states. “We also bring a lot of milk powder to the port for export to Africa from Kilkenny and Bailieboro. Dairygold have also recently started a new three-year development to build a new factory in Mallow and once that’s completed they will be sending ten containers a week to China. We will be putting our names forward for some of that work as well.”
Looking to the future, Dennis is confident that the business will continue moving in the right direction: “Things are picking up and we have experienced an increase in work. Hopefully that will continue. The fertilizer will start again in February and we are hoping to get a good bit of work out of that. Hopefully the turnover for farmers will go up again and the weather will be good next year. That would mean more work for us.”
With almost half a century of experience, O’Leary Transport are proven experts in their chosen field. They have an exceptional fleet of vehicles at their disposal and the input of excellent staff, whom Dennis regards as his greatest asset:
“We would be lost without our drivers,” he concludes. “We have one man who has been with us for 37 years now. Once a driver trains with us, he tends to stick with us. They are all fully trained and updated on the latest rules and legislation The RSA are very strict now but we have the green light on and we intend to keep it on!”
O’Leary Transport
Ballygarvan,
County Cork.
Mobile: 087 9791073
Phone: 021 4888444
Fax: 021 4888225
Email: [email protected]
Taken from Irish Tractor & Agri magazine Vol 2 No 7, December 2014
