Martin Heydon (Kildare South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy is right in saying there is a range of agricultural reliefs. Some of these we take for granted, but if anything were ever to happen to the agricultural relief for young farmers, stamp duty relief and consanguinity duty relief, through which €274 million was provided in support in 2022, we would know very quickly how big a devastating impact that would have. I mention the 100% stock relief for young, trained farmers as well.

The approach of the Government and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has been to support the younger generations to take farming on and to incentivise this happening, like the support provided by the young, trained farmers element of the targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, and those other supports that encourage this transition. I remember a past early retirement scheme where farmers from 55 to 65 were afraid to get caught walking across the yard carrying a bucket in case they were going to be disqualified and have to then pay everything back. Even when they reached 65, those farmers still had a lot to offer. That was also a very expensive scheme. We would, therefore, have to look, in terms of value for money, to see the best way of doing this and any tweaks to be made in this regard. We work with Macra na Feirme and look at the proposals it has suggested around succession. This is an area many people have a view on and I believe there is much more we can do to support farmers to take the fear out of the conversation around succession and to have this process happen in a planned way. This is always way better than succession happening in a time of crisis.

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