My Department has been aware, from an early stage in the negotiations on the Agenda 2000 single payment scheme, introduced by way of Council Regulation EC 1782/2003, that it had potential implications for farmers who had joined one or other of the early retirement schemes. Those issues were repeatedly raised by Ireland in the course of the negotiations, and we secured agreement on certain measures to address them.
In general, the new single payment scheme, introduced in Ireland on 1 January 2005, is applicable to farmers who actively farmed during the reference years 2000, 2001 and 2002, who were paid livestock premia and-or arable aid in one or more of those years and who will continue to farm in 2005.
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 single payment 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.
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.
