I am grateful to you, Sir, for allowing me to raise this matter on the Adjournment. It is an open secret that consideration is being given in Government circles to changes in the headage payment scheme which has been in operation since 1977. Some weeks ago a Minister of State was openly canvassing the idea of changes in the scheme in the course of discussions in the context of these spurious so-called consultations on the next phase of EC Structural Funds. Her proposal was that some of the moneys should be taken from the headage payment scheme and devoted to other purposes. More recently it has been revealed that an off-farm income limit for eligibility for these headage payments is being considered, apparently with the intention of restricting the application of the scheme mainly to smaller full-time farmers in the disadvantaged areas. In my view those proposals are utterly misconceived and could be fatal to rural communities and to small towns and villages right across the disadvantaged areas of the country.
I know the scheme very well. I was working in Brussels for the Irish Farmers Association when the scheme was first conceived and I was working in the Commission when the scheme was born and for some years after it came into effect. I say with that knowledge that the clear purpose of the scheme is to channel a direct income subsidy into areas where farming is particularly difficult in order to ensure the maintenance of a reasonable economic and social structure and a reasonable level of population. That was the sole aim of the headage payment scheme.
It is outrageous that the Economic and Social Research Institute is seeking to justify proposals for diverting funds away from this scheme on the grounds that it is only an income subsidy scheme, as if there was something wrong with income subsidy schemes. Let us be perfectly clear that this is an income subsidy scheme and it has never been represented as anything else. It is efficient at fulfilling the purpose it was set up for and it is not in need of any improvement from the smart aleck Labour Party "fairyland" economics. With effect from 1990 there has been no off-farm income limit on eligibility for the scheme. There was an income limit which was removed in 1989 on the basis of the income situation on farms at that time. If anything the situation has got worse since then and income on farms in disadvantaged areas has slipped even further behind other incomes.
There are studies quoted in that unpublished NESC report which show that very clearly. For example, there were 80,000 farms in 1990 in the disadvantaged areas where income was below £5,000 from the farm and where the farm operator had no other income. Equally, it appears that in 1990 there were about 27,000 in disadvantaged areas where the farm income was less than £5,000 and where the farm operator had another source of income. Those of us who are familiar with the disadvantaged areas will know that in the vast majority of those cases the off-farm income was small and frequently it is either sporadic or seasonal. In 1990 45 per cent of Irish farmers were part-time in the disadvantaged areas where subsidies, including headage payments and other transfers, added over 50 per cent to appallingly low farm income figures. A further 15 per cent of the total number of Irish farmers were full-time in the disadvantaged areas where subsidies, including headage payments, added another 25 per cent to very modest levels of farm family income.
These data show very clearly that there can be no justification for the imposition at this time, or at any time, of an off-farm income limit for eligibility for this scheme.
I need tonight, and I would like to have, a very simple direct response from the Minister. All I want the Minister to say is that there will be no interference with the headage payments scheme. If the Minister says any more than that, and if he qualifies his answer in any way, then I will know that the headage payments scheme is under threat and with it the economic and social fabric of a vast part of rural Ireland.
