Mr. Derrie Dillon:

In response to Deputy Carthy, we have spoken about succession schemes and particular sectors that are challenged whether that is access to credit or availing of other incentives. There is an opportunity to create greater alignment between the Common Agricultural Policy schemes and our taxation code.

That is a part of the CAP strategic plan too and that opportunity should not be lost. We talked about succession earlier. For sectors that are not incentivised enough by taxation measures - we all know which ones we are talking about - there is an opportunity to tweak existing taxation schemes to make them more attractive to those sectors.

Moving to sectors where young farmers have difficulty accessing credit, a report published by Indecon in 2016 was an ex anteevaluation of the use of financial instruments within Ireland's rural development programme at the time. It identified a market failure to the tune of €105 million in 2016, increasing to €350 million over the 2020s. A particular group, namely, young farmers, had been experiencing market failure when trying to access credit, particularly within the pillar banks. A recommendation Indecon made related to the use of financial instruments within the rural development programme. We have sought that, at a minimum, they would be piloted among young farmers within this rural development programme.

This is not new from Macra na Feirme; we sought it in the case of the current development programme. We cannot see any other solid mechanism, allowed under state aid rules, that would provide for young farmers to be able to access credit outside of financial instruments. Financial instruments are made available through the rural development programme. It is an revolving fund that is available and that is self-financing over time. It supports farmers who experience market failure in accessing credit to be able to avail of investment supports within their sector and to grow and drive their business, naturally on a solid business case, which is still a requirement in the context of financial instruments. Financial instruments constitute the premise of what we are considering, given that they are allowed under the rural development programme, whereas the other mechanism we examined is not allowed under current state aid rules.