Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 31 March 2015
151. Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine the arrangements in place to ensure that all farmers under 40 years of age benefit from the provisions in respect of young farmers under the rural development plan; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12955/15]
View answerWhen the Minister was president of the Agriculture and Fisheries Council, for some extraordinary reason he agreed to a mandatory scheme for young farmers that discriminated and excluded many farmers under 40 years of age from the benefits of the scheme. Apparently, the way he agreed to the scheme being written did not allow country discretion to allow these farmers to benefit from the schemes. In other words, the Minister did not allow himself the discretion to deal with the so-called "old young farmers" who have been so badly discriminated against by him. Is he going to take steps to deal with this matter?
We have already taken steps to deal with that matter. To explain how things happened as they did, Ireland was one of the leading countries, if not the leading country, looking to insist that every country would be required to prioritise young farmers, and we got our way on that in the end. However, the Commission insisted, and agreed with us, that as part of that, if a country has a mandatory measure, then it has to define what a young farmer is in the regulation, which is what happened. Therefore, a young farmer was defined as a person under the age of 40 who has come into farming in the last five years, because the whole point of positively discriminating in favour of these people is to give them a bit of extra cash and financial support to get them started in agriculture as young farmers who have come into farming in recent times.
That was its purpose. This group of people is now getting priority treatment in Pillar 1. Their payments are being topped by the national reserve up to the national average, and then they are getting another top-up on top of that of 25%. They are also getting preferential treatment in Pillar 2. When we open the TAMS scheme in a few weeks' time, they will have the option to get a 60% grant rather the 40% grant everyone else receives. That is a strong package for those farmers. There are some farmers who feel they have been locked out of that system because they missed out on installation aid or started farming six or seven years ago and, therefore, are not defined as young farmers in the regulation.
We went back to the Commission and advised it of the farmers who came into farming just after the installation aid scheme was closed by the previous Government and who cannot now qualify to be young farmers. We said we thought they were a disadvantaged group and wanted to help them. The Commission has accepted that and, as of today, such farmers can apply to the national reserve to get a top-up of their single farm payment up to the national average, which is a significant boost for that category of farmer.
I do not know why the Minister sold our farmers out. Apparently he had some desire to force a young farmers' scheme on countries which perhaps wanted one. That is what he did. Will the Minister clarify that a young farmer, as defined in the regulation, gets three advantages, as he said, namely, access to the national reserve, a top-up in the BPS and greening and a 60% grant under TAMS?
Is the Deputy against that?
Will he confirm that he has done something for the very small cohort of farmers who entered the sector in 2008 and 2009 in respect of access to the national reserve? Will he confirm that the top-up he is giving those farmers is in no way equivalent to the top-up that is being given to qualifying young farmers who are excluded from the top-up from TAMS? Does the Minister intend to re-examine the situation and ensure farmers from 2008 and 2009 and those who received installation aid, which was a finite sum of money, have access to the national reserve, the BPS greening and the TAMS top-up on the same terms as everyone else?
For the record and with respect, only one party sold young farmers out, and that was the Deputy's party when it decided to abolish installation aid. We are now trying to fix that problem and re-prioritise that category of farmers. We have worked with Macra na Feirme and all the farming organisations to try to do that. They were celebrating when the CAP deal was done in terms of the package for young farmers. Perhaps the Deputy should check the views of young farmers on that.
On the issue of trying to sort out this cohort of people, whom many thought it was impossible to help given the tight definition of "young farmer" in the regulation, we have found and worked out a way with the Commission to categorise them as a disadvantaged group and, therefore, a group of people to whom we can give assistance through the national reserve. We have done that to the fullest extent we can. People who just missed out on installation aid but who started farming more than five years ago can apply to the national reserve under phase 2 of the application process to get a top-up of their single farm payment up to the national average. For many young farmers who have low payments, that is a very substantial top-up.
Will the Minister confirm that he will not do anything for farmers who entered the sector before 2008 and that he will do nothing more for the farmers to whom he is giving the top-up from the national reserve? There have been long delays in issuing herd numbers and difficulties for farmers in tying up leases, land and so on. Does the Minister intend to extend the closing date for applications from young farmers? I understand it is today.
I am not aware that there is any significant request for us to extend that date, so we have not done so. My understanding is that the farmers who qualify as young farmers have not had a major issue with the application dates. If I am incorrect, I will happily listen to those arguments, but my understanding is that there is not a big issue.
With regard to Pillar 2 payments and the rural development programme, we do not have a national reserve to use. We have that under Pillar 1, and that is how the rules work. We are using what we have in Pillar 1 to try to help this group of people. The Deputy should not forget that these farmers will have the option to get all the other supports we are rolling out anyway through the rural development programme; we should not take that for granted. These are very attractive schemes with very good support measures. The people in question are not defined as young farmers in the same way as those who are defined under the regulation and therefore they will not be getting the kind of top-ups under Pillar 2 payments because we do not have a mechanism to do that. They will be getting favourable treatment through the national reserve under Pillar 1.
