Mr. John Comer:

The ICMSA welcomes the invitation and this opportunity to address the committee on what it believes are the key aspects of its pre-budget submission. The pre-budget submission addresses a number of issues, but for the purposes of the presentation I will focus on those of particular importance to Irish farmers with regard to growing and developing their farm enterprise in a sector which is of crucial economic importance to the Irish economy which, as has already been stated, has grown to the tune of €10 billion.

Farm income volatility and cash flow can be a serious impediment to Irish farmers, and we aspire to create an environment which would smooth out some of this volatility, particularly in the context of expansion. The ICMSA proposals a farm management deposit scheme, the details of which have been circulated and are available. I am happy to answer questions on it. As my time is limited I cannot go into it in detail.

Flexibility in the write-off of capital expenditure is important and should be between three and eight years, with the potential to use up to 50% in any particular year. Incomes fluctuate depending on markets and tools must be available to the farmers to make it more fit for purpose.

It is vital that GLAS, TAMS and the areas of natural constraint are adequately funded by the Department of Finance. As previously stated, all of this funding comes back to the local economy and none of it goes into offshore accounts, unlike large corporations. With up to 300,000 jobs supported it is value for money. We advocate frontloading these schemes and having them in place and ready for use as soon as possible.

Other areas of concern to us are the retention of stock relief, being able to transfer a family farm from one generation to the next without tax liability and the reintroduction of indexation with regard to capital gains tax. When capital gains tax was reduced from 40% to 20% indexation was not as important, but the rate has increased to 33% and a fresh look at indexation needs to be taken to make the system equitable.

With regard to capital acquisitions, it is vital the 90% rate is retained for farmers. The early retirement scheme is gone. Income tax relief on land leasing should be extended to family members and we would restrict this tax relief to those aged between 55 and 65 so it would not be counter-productive.

In Irish society today it is very difficult for a father or mother to hand over a farm to a son or daughter with all the potential variables that exist. They just do not know in terms of status of marriage and they have to have their own income for another few years. We would like that extended to family members. I think we could come up with a mechanism to avoid it being open to the potential abuse that is suggested if it was introduced. Obviously there is the extension of the 1% stamp duty for untrained farmers and a plethora of other items I could discuss.