Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome our guests and acknowledge the president and CEO and other members of Macra na Feirme. I also acknowledge Macra na Feirme's great input in the social and economic aspects of agriculture in Ireland. They have had a great input over the past 40-plus years which we should acknowledge.

There are probably three or four questions around how we can ensure that the next CAP will benefit the agriculture industry and hopefully the young farming community. I spoke to Mr. Dillon some weeks ago about the old young farmer dynamic that has been somewhat forgotten. It is one of the issues in the CAP that we have to return to talk about how we will ensure that there is a fair, level playing field for the cohort of young farmers who have been missed, for lack of a better word. That is something that we need to look at in particular in the new CAP in 2023. How do Mr. Dillon or Mr. Duffy think we could try to work to accommodate this cohort of farmers which unfortunately has been forgotten about? They are moving into their 40s but still receive relatively low payments, through no fault of their own, merely because circumstances meant they fell between two stools.

I welcome the president's comments about how we can work with our farming community to move land from older to younger generations, particularly the retirement scheme in other countries. That is a very positive statement.

The opportunity for the older generation to work off-farm or move away at a certain age is something that such people would welcome. We need to work with the Department to see what we can do to resume the retirement scheme of 20 years ago that, although successful, was taken off the books for some bizarre reason. It was a positive scheme that promoted the renewal of the farming community and got young farmers involved at an earlier stage in life. At that age, they have the potential to make major differences on their holdings whereas someone who takes over a family farm at 35 years of age probably has other commitments and concerns and his or her potential or ability to drive the significant changes required on some holdings is limited. Progressing a farm retirement scheme is a major issue for us.