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

I am grateful to have the opportunity to speak on the Finance Bill 2024. I said in my contribution on the budget that this was a budget of choices. I believe many of the choices made were poor. There was plenty of money but no plan. I have continuously said that. The announcement on inheritance tax, for example, and the changes do not reflect the situation on the ground or the value of land. I continuously say the value of a farm is immaterial. When it is transferred, the value of that land is totally immaterial because nobody is selling it. The standard is something like every 460 years, a piece of land is sold. That might sound ridiculous but it is a fact. In other words, the real farmers of Ireland do not sell land. All they do is use it to make a living, improve it and transfer it to the next generation. If, on paper, it has gone up in value, they get hit with the capital gains tax. I do not believe the Government went nearly far enough but I could not expect it to because it is so far removed from reality. Very few Ministers in this Government go home at the weekend and put on a pair of wellingtons or worry about the price of weanlings, milk, beef or lamb. They do not care and they do not know because they are not stuck in it themselves. Many people in these chairs over the years were farmers, shopkeepers and publicans and they lived in the real world. They did not just go around with a suit and shiny pair of shoes to Dáil Éireann every for work; they had to live in the real world as well. They were employers and understood the problems.

A lot of the people who came here yesterday were workers who left their work to come to Dublin to protest about how difficult it is for them to make a living at present. While extending certain reliefs and introducing minor amendments, little has been done to address the broader financial challenges faced by farmers, for example. The budgetary increases for the agricultural sector remain minimal, leaving many farming communities feeling overlooked. I spoke to people today in farming organisations in Kerry. They certainly are not happy with what the Finance Bill contains. The Bill extends the duration of key stock relief measures including general stock relief, young trained farmers stock relief and the registered farm partnership stock relief until 31 December 2027. While these extensions are welcome, they do not represent any new support but rather a continuation of existing measures.

The Bill increases the flat rate scheme for unregistered farmers that compensates them for VAT including on farming inputs. The rate will rise from 4.8% to 5.1%. One thing has not been addressed - there is a lot of VAT on certain items of farm equipment which farmers in all good faith purchased, developed and built. Then, all of a sudden, the rug was pulled out from underneath them when it came to claiming the VAT back. That is a battle I have continuously fought on behalf of Kerry farmers. Many people were caught. An example is calf feeders. I would not expect the people in government to know a whole lot about calf feeders because they would not know one end of a cow's udder from her head, not to mind the calf feeder. We will try to explain it to them some time.

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