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Farm Retirement Scheme.

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 30 March 2004

Tuesday, 30 March 2004

Questions (111, 112, 113)

Michael Ring

Question:

224 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the reason farmers have to cease farming completely before they can apply for inclusion in the farm retirement scheme; and if this complies with inclusion in any other retirement scheme from other sectors. [9710/04]

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Written answers

The schemes of early retirement from farming introduced in 1994 and 2000 in implementation of EU regulations were explicitly designed to encourage older farmers to bring forward their retirement and to transfer their holdings to younger farmers at an earlier date than might otherwise have been the case. Consequently farmers became eligible for both schemes on reaching the age of 55. These schemes are not comparable, therefore, with retirement schemes in other sectors which are designed to provide for workers reaching the normal retirement age.

It is a requirement of the EU regulations governing both schemes of early retirement from farming that the applicant must retire from farming definitively. Before an application can be considered by the Department, therefore, it is necessary for the applicant to have retired from farming and transferred or leased his or her land to a farmer who meets the eligibility conditions of the scheme.

Michael Ring

Question:

225 Mr. Ring asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the proposals that are being sent to Europe concerning the leasing of land by persons in the farm retirement scheme to their sons; and the regulations in this regard in other EU member states. [9711/04]

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My Department is in the final stages of discussions with the European Commission on the detailed rules for implementing the mid-term review agreement which will apply to all EU member states. I have already raised a number of issues relating to both farmers who have retired under the early retirement schemes and the young farmers who replaced them, and the implications for them of decoupling and the single payment scheme.

Under the European Council regulation introducing the single payment scheme, a farmer may have access to the scheme if he or she was an active farmer during one or more of the reference years 2000, 2001 and 2002, and received payments under the livestock premia and-or arable aid schemes. In addition, farmers for whom entitlements will be established must activate those entitlements in 2005 by continuing to farm and submitting an area aid declaration in that year.

Young farmers who leased land from farmers who retired under the early retirement schemes, and were active farmers in the reference period, including the sons or daughters of the retired farmers themselves, will have entitlements established for them. It should be noted that entitlements are attached to the farmer who was actively farming during the reference period, and not to the land. During the Council negotiations last year I secured agreement that farmers, including offspring of farmers who retired before the reference period, who take over the holding of the retired farmers at some date in the future will be able to apply to the national reserve for payment entitlements under the single payment scheme. This will not affect the entitlements of the young farmers who farmed during the reference period.

Martin Ferris

Question:

226 Mr. Ferris asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food the number of farmers, married to civil servants, who are part of the early retirement scheme, do not have their OAP offset against the ERS. [9723/04]

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The EU regulations governing the two schemes of early retirement from farming provide that where a transferor is paid a national retirement pension, it must be offset against the pension under the early retirement scheme and the transferor may be paid only the balance of the latter, if any. The pensions defined as national retirement pensions for the purposes of the scheme of early retirement from farming are the old age pension-contributory and non-contributory, the retirement pension for the self-employed, the widow's or widower's pension-contributory and non-contributory, the invalidity pension and the blind pension.

To implement the provision in the EU regulations, my Department is required to obtain details of cases where such national retirement pensions are paid to retired farmers and to their spouses or partners in joint management applications. The provisions of these regulations do not require my Department to ask for or keep details of other pensions such as civil service pension.

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