Michelle Mulherin (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I want to extend a welcome to the witnesses. Having spoken to them before, I appreciate where they are coming from. I welcome the fact that they will soon have their report to hand on land mobility. I hope that it will be a robust document in the sense that it will give a clear indication as to how we might proceed. As regards land mobility in particular, if we look at all the tax incentives that are already there - including young trained farmer relief, agricultural relief in capital aquisitions tax, capital gains tax, retirement relief for a farmer handing over land - they were not created yesterday or the day before. They have been on the go for a while, yet we still have a major problem concerning the reluctance of farmers who own land to pass it on or making arrangements to do so. Part of the difficulty is that there is no way we can identify that those arrangements are there.

I agree with Senator Comiskey that the early retirement scheme was helpful but we did not see everyone clamouring to avail of it either. Are there some preliminary views on it? We get all sorts of reports back, including farmers who will not give over their land because there are no pre-nuptial agreements and they do not know how the land will be divided. They will therefore allow their son or daughter to farm with them but it all carries a health warning because they obviously do not believe in romance or have been around too long to believe in it.

Another issue has been brought to my attention at clinics in Mayo. It is the question of people still having difficulty getting planning permission to build on a holding for a son or daughter who is the heir apparent to the land. They wish to be in a common sense location near outhouses, rather than being on part of the holding that is ten or 12 miles away just because the planning decision requires that. In some instances, houses were built as a commodity that was sold. People have come to live in areas where it was probably envisaged that it would only be for the farmer's son or daughter to assist with the continuity of farming. That is a real problem for some farmers. Some people are tearing their hair out because they have issues in dealing with local authorities. Younger people obviously want to build such houses, so I would be interested to hear what Macra na Feirme has to say about this. A lot of tax incentives have already been tried, so what is the overriding feeling? I appreciate that Mr. Jagoe will not give me a final answer until he has the report.