Dan Neville
Ceist:106 Mr. Neville asked the Minister for Agriculture and Food when early farm retirement will be paid to a person (details supplied) in County Limerick. [16041/04]
Amharc ar fhreagraThursday, 27 May 2004
Ceisteanna (109)
Freagraí scríofa
The person named sought an exemption from certain qualifying conditions of the farm retirement scheme on the grounds of her ill health. She had ceased farming in 1995 and, as a consequence, was unable to satisfy a number of conditions including the requirement to have been engaged in farming for the ten calendar years prior to the date of transfer or lease of her land under the scheme to an eligible transferee. Only leases or transfers of pension lands to eligible transferees on or after 1 January 2000 are eligible for inclusion in the scheme.
The scheme includes a provision for conditions to be waived where an applicant cannot meet them for certain reasons beyond his or her control, including long-term incapacity. My Department, while sympathetic to the situation of the person named, concluded that an exemption could not be granted in her case because she had been out of farming for nine years. The farm retirement scheme is fundamentally a restructuring scheme intended to encourage older farmers to retire early and give over their land to younger farmers. The fact that the person named has been out of farming for so long made it very difficult to accept that she was still in any meaningful sense a farmer. It is considered that the granting of an exemption in this case would have stretched the interpretation of the scheme beyond reasonable limits.
The person named was informed of this decision through her agricultural adviser and advised of her right of appeal to the agriculture appeals office.