Mr. John Keane:

I thank the Deputy for the question. It is a difficult one to answer. From our perspective, the arbitrary figure of 35 is probably reflective of some of the age categories who are farming. We are young farmers and, as has been commented on, we have the ambition to change the world in this document and what we want, rightly, to see happen. We also have to be cognisant of the people who have gone before us and that we have inherited a system of agriculture that, when compared with the rest of the world, means we are very fortunate to be where we are. From speaking to older farmers, one of the biggest impediments is financial security, and that is the number one issue that comes back. What am I going to have if I give up the farm now and my son or daughter takes over? We recognise that 35 or 34 years, 11 months and 30 days can be the deadline people are aiming for, but addressing the problem at source is probably a better way of going about it than changing the arbitrary figure. In reality, someone could still be 55 and their son or daughter 30. Fifty-five is a very young age for people to be thinking about retiring. There should be a pathway for succession and partnerships, and we recognise partnerships are there.

The solution is providing a succession scheme that offers a realistic income for older farmers to step back and has supports for a young person to come forward. We will send on to the committee the succession scheme we recently proposed to a number of the Food Vision groups. I apologise for not attaching it to the end of the document. That scheme includes a recognition of a farmer's working time of about 40 hours a week, a payment at minimum wage, and the incentives we have spoken about for younger farmers around investment support, TAMS and low-cost finance through the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, SBCI. Those are measures young farmers can use to start off. There is a double side - support for the older and younger farmers. That is the best approach. There is also the benefit of experience still being at play on the farm. We think we know it all as young farmers, that we are brilliant and fair play to us, but the reality is we lack life experience and the experience of changes in the environment and changes as time goes on. On that benefit of experience, I know from my own experience that having the ear of my dad at home to listen to and get advice from can be valuable for making mistakes and so forth. That is something we cannot discount either. Older farmers still have a huge role to play, and simply writing them off is not fair either.