Danny Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, for bringing us to where we are today. At least we will have a cap of three years on the family farm, as there is on all residential properties. I am still not happy with this because I believe the land should not be assessed. It should be the family home, the same as everybody else. Why treat farmers, publicans and shopkeepers differently from everyone else? Why should their business places be assessed? I will give an example. A poor farm could be valued at €500,000. To pay 7.5% of that would amount to €37,500 a year, for three years. That would be €112,500 the young fellow or whoever takes on the farm will be responsible for paying back. If that young fellow had to provide a house for himself, with a mortgage, and to pay back this loan, he would not get much out of the work of 60 or 70 cows and he would be fairly run down to the ground before he would be paid back. It is not right. The family farm should not be assessed in the first place.

Even though farms may be worth big money, they do not always generate big money. That is what we have to know here. The Minister of State said that family members must have been involved in the enterprise for five years previously and that they must farm the farm for six years in future. That is a fair commitment. What we are not recognising properly is that farmers have a constant battle on their hands, long hours of manual work, red tape and regulations. When they have dealt with everything else, they have to contend with the weather. Many finish up in bad shape physically and maybe mentally too. That needs to be recognised. To say that some young fellow or his wife must continue to farm does not consider that they have children who may be going to school or that there may be apprentices. It is wrong to stop the farmer who is left behind from leasing the land, because that would generate money for him or her.

Every one of us here has a duty to ensure that every law that is brought in is democratic. This assessment of the family farm is not democratic. The family farm is handed down and the farmer wants to hand it down again to the next generation. That has been done traditionally in Ireland.

I respect the Minister of State very much because she keeps people in mind at all times. However, she needs to consider this again. The family farm should not form part of the assessment. It is not fair, it is not right and it is not democratic. In the normal case, income and savings are assessed and the first €35,000 of savings are not reckonable. In many cases, farmers do not have €35,000 in savings because, as has been said here, many of them do not even make €20,000 a year. It is very wrong to say that the person left behind when, all of a sudden, the worker on the farm finishes up in a hospital and then in a nursing home cannot rent out the farm. It is very wrong to include it in the assessment in the first place.

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