Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak to amendment No. 66. As Deputy Burton has said, information is power, and in this case it would seem that the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine did not have the information on the extension of stamp duty to farmers because he certainly came out the next day to say that this was not going to extend to them. We now find, of course, that it does and there was great dismay among many in rural Ireland who were in the process of buying and selling land to find that this 6% stamp duty was to clamped onto it.

Our proposal here is to reduce that stamp duty rate in line with what the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine said the day after the budget. That is our demand here and we expect it to be met because at the end of the day the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine represents the farming community. We all know that farm income in Ireland amounts to about half of the average industrial wage and that farmers are struggling to survive. Many of the people in this situation want to buy land so as to make their holding sustainable. Somebody holding 40 or 50 acres, for example, might decide to buy the extra 20 acres that becomes available beside them. When that farmer goes to the bank to buy it, however, a big issue now is whether or not he or she is going to have to pay this 6% stamp duty. This would clamp an extra charge onto the farmer that he or she might not have budgeted for at the outset.

The issues under discussion here have been very well rehearsed both here at committee and in the Dáil on budget day. The farming community is quite angry, not just at the increase but also at the fact that they appear to have been treated as little more than an afterthought in all of this. They are quite justified in their anger because it is very clear that this was not thought through or worked out properly. This duty was simply applied to commercial property without any thought for the impact that it might have on rural Ireland and on members of the farming community. Speaking from this perspective, then, I respectfully request the support of the committee in getting this amendment through.