Vol. 431 No. 3
8 Mr. Dukes asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry the proportion of family farm income that is constituted by headage payments for livestock in the areas covered by the scheme; and whether this proportion has changed significantly since the scheme was introduced in 1977.
On the basis of unpublished farm income data available from the 1991 Teagasc national farm survey, the percentage contribution of livestock headage payments, including sheep headage payments and ewe premia, in disadvantaged areas to family income in 1991 in the "Teagasc West Region", which largely corresponds to the disadvantaged areas, was 40 per cent. Comparable data for 1977 are not available. However, on the basis of tentative estimates based on departmental data and average farm income levels for 1977 derived from the Teagasc farm management survey, livestock headage payments contributed approximately 10 per cent to family farm income in 1977.
Is the Minister aware that a hitherto unpublished NESC report indicates that livestock premia and compensation payments account for 50 per cent of farm family income on cattle farms and for up to 85 per cent of family income on farms in the west? Is the Minister aware that there are some 80,000 low income farms where there is no off farm income? Will the Minister agree, in the light of that and the information he has just given, that any limitation on headage payments, by reference to any other source of income, would constitute a major blow and threat to the income of these low income farmers?
I agree with the views expressed by Deputy Dukes that an increasing level of farm income and farm profitability is now coming in direct income support from the European Community. Therefore, any minimising of the benefits from Community income support would obviously have serious consequences for individual farmers and families. It would also have a very serious effect in terms of employment in rural areas. We talk a lot about generating new employment but it is equally important to protect existing employment. Farmers and farm families in rural areas are part of our overall national labour force and, therefore, their income must be protected.
Deputy Dukes rose.
A brief question, Deputy Dukes.
Will the Minister be adamantly opposed to the proposals now being made by the Minister of State at the Department of Finance to interfere with headage payments? Will the Minister give me a guarantee that there will not be such interference? Will he take a leaf out of the book of the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Eithne Fitzgerald, and say — as she is saying in relation to Telecom Éireann — that if these are interfered with the Government will break up?
Questions should be addressed to the Minister in charge at present and not to other Ministers.
There is no interference by any Minister or Minister of State in relation to the matter being discussed. The Deputy can also take it that both the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Forestry, Deputy Joe Walsh, and his two ministerial colleagues have put together a submission for consideration by the Government which will take into account the importance and the relevance of protecting family farm income arising from direct payments from Europe. That matter is under consideration by the Government and at this stage I am not in a position to predict the eventual outcome. I can say clearly and categorically that a strong positive definitive case has been made by the Minister to the Government in relation to that matter.
We will hold the Minister of State to that.
Question No. 10 please.
