John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

There has been much comment and speculation in the agricultural media on downward pressures on agricultural capital spending. In particular, I am thinking about investment in the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, which the Department operates to help farmers with capital projects they are aiming to construct. I wish to relate to the Minister the importance of this matter. Recently, when I was driving home, I heard that the price a farmer received for a litre of milk in 1988 was equivalent to 28 cent per litre but that the price now is 23 cent. I do not suggest that capital funding should be used to replace a proper price for a product but, for the sake of farmers who have laid out plans for capital investment and are dependent on the funding, I hope the speculation in the media is incorrect.

At the height of the recession, a retirement scheme for farmers was in place, as was an installation scheme for new entrants. Approximately 70% of farmland in the country is owned by people who are over 65 years of age. This was not much of an issue at the height of the recession because many people who had been leaving agriculture to go to other sectors were staying at home. If we are serious about developing agriculture and retaining these young people, the Departments of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Public Expenditure and Reform need to reactivate the installation aid scheme and the early retirement scheme, which were suspended and not officially scrapped. A mechanism needs to be put in place to ensure a transfer of ownership from one generation to another, which is now probably from grandparents to grandchildren because our ownership ages are quite out of line with much of the rest of the EU.