Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Some of them are probably going on to do the two or three-year courses, which would probably bring them on to involvement in agriculture. I noticed in the witnesses' submission and I have heard them speak about it previously, a facility through the EU, perhaps a loan facility, for young farmers starting off. One of the witnesses said he had 200 cows. The guts of 300 acres are needed for 200 cows. The average application to the single farm payments is 32 ha, which is 70 or 80 acres.

I ask the witnesses whether there is a problem throughout the country in that no more land is being made, to put it very simply. There is no point in saying there is and we cannot make any more than what is there. Farms are getting bigger and bigger. There are parts of the country in which one cannot take land at the price for which it is being sold. If that continues, fewer farmers will be involved, because land is not available or some farms are getting bigger and bigger, while more are not able to get the facility, depending on the farming they are doing. I ask the witnesses how we counteract that problem.

I was surprised when the witnesses said they welcomed the 90 ha limit being removed from young farmers, because 90 ha is 225 acres, compared to the average 32 ha single farm payment application. Everyone welcomes the removal of an off-farm income limit. However, were we not better using the percentage of money going into the pot to help the young farmers starting off by raising the money in the young farmers scheme, for the five-year period, rather than going for more hectares, in order to give more money to more youngsters on less land? Was that not a better system?

As someone who is a farming contractor, if one had a big tractor years ago in 1990 or 1991, such as a Deutz-Fahr tractor, it was like a Rolls Royce pulling up and every youngster in the country wanted to drive it. One can have the most modern machines on the go today and they do not want to drive them. How do we counteract that, compared to where we were a number of years ago?