Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 24 January 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Special Reports on EU Support for Young Farmers and the Rural Affairs Programme: European Court of Auditors

12:10 pm

Mr. Peter Welch:

It is early days but we are seeing much dead weight in that measure. That extra 25% goes to many people who would have taken over the farms anyway and there are probably not many who specifically take over a farm simply because of the 25% they will get for a five year period. It is probably not a sufficient incentive for people to do something they were not going to do anyway. That brings us back to one of the dilemmas. We like simple schemes and this is quite a simple scheme. However, just because it is simple does not mean it is necessarily going to have a big impact.