asked the Minister for Lands the retirement or pension arrangements available from the Land Commission; and to what extent such arrangements have been availed of.
40.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Farm Retirement Plan.
39.
asked the Minister for Lands the essential points of difference between the modified Mansholt plan and the Land Commission's farm retirement plan.
With your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, I propose to take Questions Nos. 39 and 40 together.
The life annuity scheme is authorised by section 6 of the Land Act, 1965, and provides that elderly, incapacitated or blind farmers who wish to retire from farming and who voluntarily sell their lands to the Land Commission may obtain, in return, the full market value of the property payable (a) in cash or (b) as a life annuity or (c) as a combination of part cash and part annuity.
The Land Commission will defray the vendor's normal costs of sale in connection with the transfer of the lands to them.
To ensure that farmers will not be obliged to uproot themselves from their existing environment, the scheme includes provision for the granting to the vendor, where necessary, of a right of residence in the dwellinghouse on the lands. In addition, the question of giving him a letting of a small area of accommodation land will be considered where this facility is required.
In the case of an elderly farmer, the first £3 per week of his life annuity will not be reckonable in the means test for old age pension. An incapacitated vendor may be paid, in addition to his life annuity, a supplementary allowance, up to £208 per annum, until he reaches 70 years of age or is awarded a pension as a blind person under the Old Age Pension Acts.
The scheme is regarded primarily as a means of obtaining land for the structural reform programme to augment the existing sources of land available to the Land Commission.
I shall arrange to have the Deputy supplied with a leaflet giving further details of the scheme.
In all, some 414 firm applications for participation in the scheme have been received and, of these, 403 have been investigated. 191 applications had to be eliminated at an early stage— mainly because the lands offered were not considered suitable or required for Land Commission purposes. A further 76 were withdrawn, the owners preferring to offer their lands to the Land Commission in the ordinary way for cash or land bonds. In all, 132 applications developed into potential life annuity cases and advanced to the stage where price negotiations were authorised. Price agreement has been reached in 37 cases and life annuities, ranging from £79 to £904, have actually been set up. The area of land thus released to the Land Commission amounts to 1,630 acres.
As regards the resolutions covering land structure reform recently passed by the agricultural ministers of the Six, I am awaiting the original documents in translation.
I understand, however, that the system of aids for those who hope to leave the land include:
(1) a non-eligible premium calculated according to the amount of land freed;
(2) and/or, for full-time farmers between 55 and 65 years and, under certain circumstances, for workers of this age working with them an annual compensation of an eligible amount of £250. The member states can be empowered to replace this with the payment of a lump sum.
As I have said I have not, as yet, received the official documentation and, until I do so, I feel it would be premature to say any more.
Would the Minister not agree that section 6 of the 1965 Land Act has been a failure? It has now been in operation for five and a half years and so far only 37 cases have been finalised. I admit that it was not the present Minister who introduced it but would the present Minister have another look at this scheme and try to make it more attractive than it is at present?
That matter is being considered.
It is being done?
It is being considered.
Would the Minister not agree that the EEC terms are much more favourable than our terms?
In some respects, yes. There are two different kinds of schemes there. There is the non-eligible premium which is calculated according to the amount of land that is freed and then there is the fixed £250 a year which differs from our variable of between £80 and £900. In some respects the EEC proposals are better but I do not think that——
Would the Minister not agree that it should be his aim and the aim of the Land Commission to try to get as big a pool of land as possible into the hands of the Land Commission within the next three years and also that it is a good idea to get this land voluntarily from old people and give it to younger people who can work it much better in the nation's interest?
I agree with the Deputy that there would be no question of acquiring land from elderly people except on a voluntary basis.
I know.