Both schemes of early retirement from farming are governed by EU regulations and my Department must implement the schemes in accordance with the provisions of those regulations.
It is a requirement of the schemes of early retirement that participants, whether they join the scheme because of ill health or for other reasons, must never return to farming. If a retired farmer wanted to return to farming, he or she would have to repay the full value of the pension payments received under the scheme of early retirement.
As regards entitlements under the single payment scheme, farmers who joined the 1994 early retirement scheme, which closed to new applications in December 1999, did not farm during the reference period and cannot establish entitlements under the scheme. Where they transferred their holdings by lease, it was the transferees who were actively farming during the reference years and it is they who will have entitlements established for them. Entitlements are attached to the farmer who was actively farming during the reference period, not to the land. If the land was leased to a family member during the reference period, that family member will activate the entitlements in the same way as someone who is not a family member.
During the course of negotiations with the European Commission on the single payment scheme, Ireland secured agreement to an arrangement that will benefit family members or others who now take over holdings that were farmed by third parties who had leased them during the reference period. Farmers who take over such holdings, by transfer free of charge or by a lease of five or more years at a nominal amount, may apply to the national reserve for payment entitlements under the single payment scheme.
Participants in the current early retirement scheme launched in November 2000 who farmed during part or all of the reference period, will have entitlements in their own right and can, before 15 May 2005, use — subject to the agreement of both parties — the private contract clause to lease these entitlements to the young farmer who holds the lease of their land under the early retirement scheme. In such circumstances, the retired farmer must establish the entitlements in 2005 on a special form provided by the Department. The qualifying young farmer may or may not have entitlements and land in his or her own right.
The Department implements the schemes in accordance with the governing EU regulations and payment of pensions will be made to participants provided they continue to meet the conditions of the schemes. If individual retired farmers have difficulty, for example, in renewing leases or finding a replacement eligible farmer to take their land, and can provide proof of this, my Department will consider sympathetically any request for an extension of the four months that are allowed to them to complete these transactions.
