Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The farm assist scheme has brought significant benefits to farmers, including the ongoing entitlement for a family member to participate in the rural social scheme. However, one issue has cropped up in recent times in the context of the farm assist scheme. When some farmers inherit a farm, they inherit the original farmhouse. In some cases, a family member may continue to live in that house rent free and, in other instances, the houses are derelict. The Minister said that she is looking at streamlining the means test for the farm assist payment and, in that context, it is important that no capital value is put on something that is of no material value at all. If there is a house on the farm that a family member, an elderly parent or uncle, for example, lives in, that should be taken into account. There should be a mechanism within the Department to take that into account because that would reflect a lot of situations on the ground.

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