Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is about land eligibility. It is about land that was previously eligible for area aid. I will explain it in simple terms. If one has 100 acres of ground now they are saying that instead of that 100 acres being eligible if anything over 20% of the 100 acres is deemed ineligible then one will incur a 100% penalty. Therefore, one will get no area aid.

My nephew, Johnny Healy-Rae, rightly highlighted this aspect at the meeting and he put it very well. He said, "Any person in their lives that was ever 20% wrong about something - they were never 100% wrong about everything". He was right. For a young man's head it was a very sensible point to make. A person can be 20% wrong about anything but why should that person be fined 100% for being 20% wrong? In the past those people were not 20% wrong because the land that is now being deemed to be ineligible was eligible before. That is having a detrimental effect on our farming community and family farm incomes and it will make the dairy farmer's job even more difficult. The Minister of State can appreciate this point because he has a common sense head on his shoulders and he knows what I am talking about.

With regard to the group from west Cork who are taking the legal challenge what will the Government do to try to assist these farmers? There have been a lot of protests and rightly so and people are very angered about the water charges. As I already said in the House this morning to Deputy McGrath, the water charges issue is very important but this issue of land being taken away from being eligible for our farming community is even more detrimental to that sector than the water charges are to the people who have to pay them. The farmers have to pay water charges also.

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