Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have tabled amendments on the definition of the active farmer. The Government amendments do not deal with the issue of 50% of the working week. I propose that we define the working week as a 35 hour week, which would mean that the farmer would have to farm for 17.5 hours to avail of the benefits included in the different sections. That is reasonable. Any active farmer would work for approximately 2.5 hours a day. That classification would be acceptable to farming groups, but the present definition is not acceptable. I raised this on Second Stage in respect of farmers with small holdings, particularly on disadvantaged land, who would not have enough income to sustain themselves and need off-farm income. The requirement would be that in certain circumstances if they work 40 hours off-farm they would have to work 40 hours on-farm, which is unrealistic.