Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy will be aware, I have committed to helping the cohort of farmers known as “forgotten farmers”. This has been a long-standing commitment of mine from the time that I was in opposition to the time that I entered the Government. I ensured that it was part of the programme for Government commitments, and I have been following through on it since. The Department has developed a preliminary outline of a proposal to provide support to this group. I was pleased to have the opportunity at the recent Macra na Feirme conference in Ballykisteen to announce details of proposals that had been developed to address the issue of. I am engaging with my colleague the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, regarding the funding required.

The details of the eligibility requirements and benefits to successful applicants for a scheme to support the forgotten farmer group have yet to be fully finalised and we are working hard to finish this work to open the scheme for applications. Many of these farmers have found themselves in this position through no fault of their own. They have spent a considerable time operating their business at a disadvantage and I am moving as quickly as possible to address this anomaly. The eligibility requirements and other scheme details will be made publicly available as soon as this process has been completed. A lot of work is going to do it. It is complex in terms of the detail, identifying the different cohorts and being able to step it out. There will be significant work in processing the scheme as well but our commitment is crystal clear to follow through on this. There will be a scheme. We are stepping it out and we are now getting to the stage where we are finalising it to open it for applications

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