Matt Carthy (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for attending. The topic, a vision for the future of Irish farming, did not really lend itself to an hour long meeting as there are so many issues and permutations and factors that need to be considered as to whether Irish farming has a future at all, particularly in terms of the family farm model. Even the debate we have had thus far this evening shows that this is an area that will involve quite an amount of deliberation.

I will be bringing forward legislation for the establishment of a commission on the future of the family farm within the coming weeks. It will require that high level, specific approach to identify key areas. Going through each of the areas, there are many potential outworkings.

A lot of the broad issues have been dealt with in the questions so far. I will put some specific points and hopefully we can have a quick back and forth. I have a specific question on the notion of finance being provided through the SBCI. We have seen the general agricultural schemes; in all cases it has to be said they have been the only ones under the SBCI that have been fully drawn down very quickly and almost always fully paid back on time as well. How would the witnesses see an element of that working? Would it be a ring-fence of that funding or new funding for the young farmer scheme? What would be the difference between it and the general agricultural loans that have been offered to date?