Mr. John Bryan:

The IFA's message is the importance of agriculture to the Irish economy and rural infrastructure. We are concentrating on jobs and exports. After several tough years and savage cuts in successive budgets, agriculture still maintains over 300,000 jobs spread throughout Ireland from Donegal to Wexford and every part of the country. Even after a tough year in 2012, exports grew by over €9 billion and are up 8% in the first six months of this year. There is significant pressure at farm level and farm incomes have dropped substantially. The farm household income survey shows that farm incomes were down 15% last year. This morning, the troika said the Government needs to focus more on unemployment and jobs. We are very much concerned with the cuts that have taken place in 2008, 2009, 2011 and 2012. They are hitting many low and medium-income farmers and pushing them to the stage where they will not be able to maintain production. Clearly, we can already see a substantial drop in sheep and suckler cow numbers. It is Government policy to hit Food Harvest 2020 targets which will create more jobs and exports. The Government must target investment in growth if we are to hit the targets over the next number of years. The figures clearly show that since 2008, agriculture has been hit disproportionately compared to other Government Departments. The agriculture budget has declined from 2008 to 2013 by 41.2% when it is down 12.6% across all other Departments. As a percentage of overall Government expenditure, in 2004 and 2005, agriculture got 3%. Today, it gets 2%. That serious cut in expenditure will have a knock-on effect on jobs and exports and cost the wider economy.

The IFA is prioritising a few areas in the upcoming budget. In particular, we say the schemes that are so vital to many small and medium-income farmers must be maintained. Environmental schemes, the disadvantaged areas scheme, the suckler welfare scheme and forestry payments must be protected. The cuts that have taken place over the past number of years are severely impacting on income.

Many farmers have very low incomes and the universal social charge and other costs have hit them substantially. The fact that farmers do not get the PAYE allowance means a farmer with an income of €20,000 pays double the level of income tax compared to a corresponding person in the PAYE sector. Low-income farmers have been hit very hard over the past number of years. In respect of capital taxes, the transfer of farms to the next generation is very important to bring young people into the sector. A few years ago, there were fewer than 600 people in agricultural colleges. Today, that figure is 1,600 so we must incentivise the transfer of farms. The retention of 90% agricultural relief is essential for this to happen.

Other areas are dealt with in our detailed submission, along with tables. For a small spend, many jobs can be protected in the agricultural sector but we are reaching the tipping point which is very clear from the figures for the drop in sheep and suckler cow numbers. Unless action is taken this year to reverse that, we will have a loss of jobs and a hit to the overall economy.