Pat O'Neill (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the members of the Irish Farm Managers' Association for coming in. It was a very interesting presentation that was concise and precise.

The next few years will define farming in this country. We have seen changes through various CAP negotiations but hopefully when there is a new CAP in place in 2014, and in 2015 when quotas are abolished in dairying, we will see major changes in the way farming is practised. It is important, therefore, that younger people enter farming. Any Government that is in power must have proactive policies, and the last budget was proactive about land transfer. We must go further because we must have more young people if we are to achieve the production targets in Food Harvest 2020. Land is a finite resource that means more to an Irish person than to any other nationality in the world. We only need to look at John B. Keane's play to see that.

The witnesses stated, referring to taxation policy, that a person could lose his status as a farmer under a long-term leasing arrangement. How long must someone lease land before losing his status as a farmer? We should pursue this as a committee with the Department of Finance, the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Revenue Commissioners. If that is a barrier holding people back from leasing land, it must be changed because it could have implications later on if a person has a young family and must lease the land as a result of illness. His family might want to re-enter farming but would be unwilling to do so because of transfer of land tax, capital gains tax, inheritance tax and acquisition tax.