Lely officially opened a new centre in Kilkenny on Friday, which is to support its customers across the southeast of Ireland.

The new development is part of a significant investment by the founders of Lely Mullingar in the southeast, aiming to provide even better service and support for farmers in the region.

Since starting up in 2012 in Mullingar, Lely has installed over 650 robotic milking machines on Irish farms.

Niall McGauran and Alan Heaney, the founders of Lely Mullingar, have relocated experienced staff to form a senior management team in Kilkenny, along with growing the team to include farm advisers, service engineers, sales professionals, farmyard design specialists and project co-ordinators.

The company also supplies automated feeding systems, health monitoring, heat detection, robotic yard scraping systems and automated drafting gates.

The Kilkenny hub will focus on systems to allow farmers to improve efficiency, boost productivity and help them futureproof their business, the company said.

Future

The official opening was attended by former European Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan, a local of Tullaroan in Kilkenny, who said it was “great to see the large investment Lely are making in the southeast because it is extremely important that technology companies invest in proper service so that their customers can get the real value of automation and agri tech”.

General manager of Lely Kilkenny Michael O’Grady said that “with robotic milking adoption predicted to double over the next five years, we felt the time was right to make the investment now so we would be able to properly support this growing market".