asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food, in view of the recent High Court judgment, whether he proposes to implement changes in the national restrictions governing payments to farmers in disadvantaged areas.
19.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Headage Payments.
1.
asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if he will outline the implications of the recent court case taken by the national headage group for farmers with off-farm income.
88.
asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food, in connection with the recent High Court decision on headage payments, the number of farmers involved; the number of such farmers in each county; the breakdown of men and women amongst such farmers; if the farmers involved are entitled to headage payments for 1988; if there is any retrospective payment involved; the total amount of money involved for one year based on the 1988 inspections and rates per livestock unit; and the position of farmers who did not apply for headage in 1988 in the belief that the existing regulations on headage were constitutional and that they were not eligible.
89.
asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food if he will put into operation the decision of the High Court on headage payments; or if an appeal is being considered.
103.
asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the number of farmers who will benefit from a recent court decision in the action brought by a headage action group regarding means testing for headage grants; the changes which will be implemented following this decision; and when these changes will be implemented.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 1, 19, 88, 89 and 103 together.
From the legal advice available to me, the main implications of the High Court judgment delivered on 14 April would appear to be that we are entitled to have an off-farm income clause in our disadvantaged areas schemes; that combining the off-farm incomes of applicants and their spouses does not deny applicants equality under the Constitution; but that combining their incomes while failing to combine the incomes of unmarried couples living together constitutes a failure to comply with the constitutional requirement to safeguard the institution of marriage. I am also advised that no retrospective payments are involved for 1988 or earlier years.
The present position is that my Department are awaiting receipt of an approved copy of the detailed judgment. Until this documentation is available and studied carefully by my Department in consultation with the Attorney General's office, I am not in a position to indicate whether the decision should be appealed to the Supreme Court or whether the off-farm income clause of our disadvantaged areas schemes should be amended to comply with the High Court judgment.
If I interpret the Minister correctly, the question is perhaps premature and he has not had time to respond to the judgement and analyse the implications of it. May I ask the Minister to perhaps consider, in relation to the off-farm income of both farmers and their spouses, looking to some of the other European countries and to proceed as they are proceeding now? Would the Minister, for example, consider the situation which exists in Italy, Belgium, Greece, France and Luxembourg where a spouse's income is not taken into account? I ask the Minister to seriously consider this because as we all know at present if a farmer in a disadvantaged area is married to a teacher he loses all headage payments, but if he is living with a teacher he can continue getting the headage payments. On the other hand if a small farmer is working——
I did appeal for brevity for obvious reasons.
May I ask the Minister in his response to consider the scenario where a small farmer in a disadvantaged area is working for a large farmer in a disadvantaged area and his off-farm income also denies him any headage payment whereas the large farmer for whom he works gets his headage payments? Will the Minister respond to those two aspects?
It is not that I have not had time, although I have been away all last week, to consider the implications of the judgment, but, as I said in my reply, there is a standard procedure in all such major legal issues that any final decision awaits the copy of the certified judgment — certified by the judge and counsel on both sides — and then the legal implications are very seriously considered. As I indicated in reply to the question whether an appeal would arise and one would then take action in respect of implementing the decision of the High Court, this can only be fully considered by the Minister — me in this case — after full legal advice and consideration by the legal authorities.
The other issues to which the Deputy referred may or may not arise depending on the conclusion we reach after that detailed legal consideration, which I think the Deputy would agree must be undertaken in view of the importance of this issue. The Deputy mentioned examples where people might be living together in rural Ireland. I am not aware of how many people are living together in any one parish in rural Ireland——
There are a few.
From my knowledge of rural Ireland I have the impression that this is not a feature of rural society.
Question No. 2.
May I pursue the Minister with a final supplementary?
It must be one very brief supplementary. Five minutes have elapsed for the Deputy's question and clearly I cannot have the other questions replied to within the prescribed time.
In January we got to none of my priority questions, which were Nos. 3, 4 and 5——
Because of this situation——
——while on other occasions Members with priority questions have been given latitude.
The Chair does his best on every occasion. The Chair is tired of appealing to Members on priority questions to co-operate with him.
Perhaps I could put a final supplementary and ask the Minister to consider the fact that these are national restrictions, not imposed by Brussels, and if we want to extend and reclassify under the disadvantaged areas scheme, he now has the power to move immediately without even waiting for the judgment and consideration of same.
Of course, there are national restrictions but they are entirely in accordance with the EC schemes and regulations. The Deputy listed some countries, but she did not list others where there are similar restrictions. They are entirely in accordance with EC regulations.
In Germany the off-farm income level is £25,000 but here it is £5,200.
We must have another question.
We are making great progress to catch up with Germany in economic performance, and the Deputy will be aware of that, but we have not quite done so yet.
The off-farm income in Germany is £25,000, not £5,200.
Question No. 2.