Vol. 569 No. 3
182 Ms Enright asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the position regarding the application for early retirement pension for a person (details supplied) on the basis of medical condition; and if the force majeure rule can be extended to the person's application. [17636/03]
The person named sought an exemption from certain qualifying conditions of the early retirement scheme on grounds of ill health. He had ceased farming in 1995 and, in consequence, was unable to satisfy a number of conditions including the requirement to have been engaged in farming for the ten calendar years prior to the date of transfer or lease of his land to an eligible transferee.
The scheme includes a provision for scheme conditions to be waived where an applicant cannot meet them for certain reasons beyond his or her control, including long-term incapacity. My Department, while sympathetic to the situation of the person named, concluded that an exemption could not be granted in his case because he had been out of farming for over eight years. The early retirement scheme is fundamentally a restructuring scheme intended to encourage older farmers to retire early and give over their land to younger farmers. The fact that the person named has been out of farming for so long made it very difficult to accept that he was still in any meaningful sense a farmer. It is considered that the granting of an exemption in this case would have stretched the interpretation of the scheme beyond reasonable limits. The person named was informed of this decision and advised of his right of appeal to the agriculture appeals office.
