Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 June 2014
18. Deputy Thomas Pringle asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine if he has considered the impact on farm incomes arising from the changes in the means testing of farm assist in budget 2013 by the Department of Social Protection; his views on the impact the changes have made to farm income; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26129/14]
View answerThe Farm Assist scheme is the responsibility of the Minister for Social Protection. The changes to the Farm Assist scheme were made in order to bring the scheme into closer alignment with the Jobseeker’s Allowance scheme’s treatment of self-employed persons, and were part of the overall package of measures agreed by the Government in Budget 2013.
There were 10,300 recipients of Farm Assist in 2013, with total expenditure of almost €100 million. The scheme is based on Jobseeker’s Allowance, and was introduced in 1999 to replace the ‘Smallholders Unemployment Assistance’ for low income farmers. Farm Assist recipients retain all the advantages of the Jobseeker’s Allowance scheme, such as retention of secondary benefits and access to activation programmes.
The headline rates of Farm Assist are being maintained so that farm families with the lowest income are least affected by these changes. Farm Assist remains a flexible payment and any farmer experiencing lower levels of income or cash-flow issues, due for example to bad weather, can ask the local welfare office to review the level of means applying to his/her claim.
All farms, and in particular lower income drystock farms, benefit significantly from the €1.2 billion in single farm payments paid by my Department each year.
The new Rural Development Programme will also be a vital support to farm families in terms of enhancing the competitiveness of the agri-food sector, managing natural resources in a sustainable manner, and ensuring the balanced development of rural areas. The Government has given a clear signal of its commitment to a strategic investment in rural Ireland and the agri-food sector by providing National Exchequer funding to bring the total amount available for RDP schemes to over €4 billion in the period to 2020.
