It is important to recognise that to try to run the two schemes as one would be to have a trainee and work scheme under the one umbrella. They would not be compatible and therefore separate structures will be needed. We will try to co-ordinate them in such a way so that there is no unnecessary duplication. However, two different jobs are in hand.
Funding is in place and I am ready to proceed. I can also confirm that I brought a memorandum to Government and that has been approved. It is fundamentally the same scheme as was prepared prior to the budget. Some technical difficulties had to be resolved and discussions have taken place in this regard. There have never been problems with the structure of the scheme, but there were issues about who would carry out the recruitment tasks, pay the cheques every week etc., and responsibility at that level. I am in the final stages of determining those issues and am hopeful that the scheme can be up and running in three weeks.
The final question is relevant, fair and good. I am aware of this difficulty. It does not apply only to people on disability allowance. For reasons to do with means testing, many older people have held on to ownership of the herd number. One will find a young person living on the farm — maybe not in the same house — who does much of the day-to-day farming. We all know the reasons for that. In the short term, the applicant or partner — the adult dependent on social welfare — will be the only eligible person. My philosophy is that if something is begun with tight criteria, it is much easier to loosen them if one finds they are too tight. If, however, one begins with wider criteria and loopholes present themselves, it is much more difficult to row back. I will keep in mind the issue raised by the Deputy. It is a valid one. A person in the circumstances he outlined would not be eligible. However, it would be possible in such circumstances because the one great reason for not transferring herd numbers from older to younger people — something we have encouraged for years — would be taken away. In such situations what can happen is that the herd number may be transferred from the older person to the younger.
