Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 31 March 2015
160. Deputy Denis Naughten asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his plans to address the concerns of old young farmers regarding the distribution of entitlements under the Single Payment Scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12670/15]
View answerI know time is limited. I have two specific questions. Will the Minister introduce additional flexibility into the force majeure scheme to improve the single farm payment and bring it to a viable level for farmers who established prior to 2008 with poor entitlements? Can the Minister, in conjunction with the Minister for Finance, see if a mechanism can be found to allow farmers who established prior to 2010 to avail of some additional incentive for on-farm investment? I am talking primarily about those who did not get into the installation aid scheme. Could there be some incentive to access that is similar to TAMS? Could there be a mechanism for those who established prior to 2008 to top up low payments where they are unable to avail of the new definition of a young farmer?
In respect of the finance issue, we had a very successful engagement with the Department of Finance last year from a taxation perspective. As the Deputy might remember, that resulted in a very comprehensive tax package on budget day. I think there were 23 measures, many of which were new. The total tax package was worth about €300 million for farmers. We did some very strategic things, particularly around rental land, moving away from conacre towards long-term leasing and so on. That engagement on agricultural taxation is continuing. It was not the case that it continued only until the last budget and then was shut down. We are continuing to look at new ways in which we can do strategic things such as encouraging generational change, partnerships and other efficiency and modernisation and sustainability programmes within agriculture. We will see where that takes us.
We are looking at the area of force majeure and how we can prioritise people in terms of using the national reserve most effectively, particularly with regard to people who under the Scottish derogation rules would be able to get the single farm payment and who might not have had it for a series of reasons over the past number of years, or farmers who would have been farming on "naked" land. We will look at how we can use that, but I do not want to give an exact commitment on individual cases at this stage.
