Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 13 November 2012

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Pre-Budget Submissions: Discussion with Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association

2:35 pm

Photo of Michael ComiskeyMichael Comiskey (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the representatives of the ICMSA. We have held a number of briefings with them and what is most important is to get the budget in place, which I hope will be done by the end of the year. Listening to Deputy Ó Cuív it sounds like we will have a hell of a battle distributing it when it comes to it. How many farmers receive more than €150,000 for €250,000? I do not have the figures with me but the average payment is much lower. I agree with the Minister on keeping farming in Ireland and using a percentage taken off the top to increase payments to farmers on the bottom of the scale in the west of Ireland as it would mean a great deal to them. Perhaps if it was increased a little it would suit smaller farmers better, but I support the Minister on his view and he has support throughout Europe on the issue. We will examine the figures to see how many farmers are in the large payment bracket but I do not believe too many farmers receive payments of more than €150,000 or €250,000.

It is very important to support active farmers. We should get a definition of the "armchair farmer". Young farmers will be looked after in the proposals and we welcome this as it is very important. Perhaps those farmers who are not so young and have been farming and working hard on the land trying to earn an income since 2002 but have not received a single farm payment should be looked after as well as young farmers. They should receive a single farm payment.

We must sort out the problem in the commonages. We spoke about this earlier and we will have a meeting on it. If the commonages are not sorted out many farmers will be penalised for the sins of their neighbours. It will create a hell of a battle in hill areas. One group of farmers will want to work the commonages while another group will just put sheep on them and not care about anybody. This will create war on the commonages and something must be done. It must be sorted out. Farmers cannot be penalised for another farmer taking the law into his or her own hands and over-grazing on commonages.

An environmental scheme is very important and we should have something better than AEOS to replace REPS. Perhaps it will not be as good as REPS, but a good scheme should be put in place to help farmers who look after the environment. Suckler cow and sheep schemes are funded under pillar 2, as is the disadvantaged areas scheme. We will all work to try to achieve these.

The points made about solicitors working for families was quite right. Introducing a bus load of solicitors does nothing for transferring farm assets. One solicitor is quite adequate, once what needs to be done is laid down quite clearly.

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