Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Question 1: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if, in view of an estimated 92% of farmers who are over the age of 35, he will introduce measures to address the increasingly mature age profile of Irish farmers; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37773/08]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Data from the CSO's Farm Structures Survey 2005 estimated that 8% of farm holders were under the age of 35. This figure is in line with the EU average and reflects the broad range of incentives in place to encourage the early transfer of family farms. These incentives include extensive tax reliefs that allow for family farms to be transferred without incurring stamp duty, capital gains tax and capital acquisitions tax.

I point out that stamp duty relief, which is specifically aimed at young farmers under the age of 35 who have attained certain agricultural qualifications, has been renewed in budget 2009 for four years until 31 December 2012. This is a very valuable relief that focuses on young farmers who are committed to pursuing a career in farming, and its renewal for a full four-year period reflects this Government's commitment to these farmers and their desire to enter the industry.

Stamp duty relief together with capital acquisitions tax (agricultural relief) and capital gains tax (retirement relief) ensures the majority of early farm transfers are exempt from tax. Several adjustments were made in the Finance Act 2007 to help overcome technical issues such as an adjustment to capital acquisition tax (agricultural relief) to allow for outstanding borrowings on an off-farm principal private residence when determining whether the recipient is eligible for agricultural relief.

Full capital gains tax (retirement relief) is available on disposals to family members, while relief is available on disposals to third parties up to the value of €750,000 and marginal relief on disposals above this threshold. An adjustment in the Finance Act 2007 allows farmers who had their farmland leased out prior to its disposal to a child to avail of capital gains tax (retirement relief), subject to certain conditions.

The 100% rate of stock relief for young farmers was also renewed in this year's budget for two years until 31 December 2010. This scheme is focused on new entrants who are building up the value of their herds.

In addition to the above measures, which are specifically aimed at new entrants, there are several other major incentives aimed at encouraging greater levels of land mobility. These include an income tax exemption for rental income received from the long-term lease of farmland. The substantial rental income exemptions are €12,000 on leases between five to seven years, €15,000 on leases between seven and ten years and €20,000 on leases over ten years.

Stamp duty relief for farm consolidation was renewed in budget 2009 for two years until 30 June 2011. It is available where a farmer is consolidating his or her holding through the purchase and sale of a parcel or parcels of land, subject to conditions set out in farm consolidation guidelines. This encourages farmers to swap land parcels to decrease the level of farm fragmentation and increase economic efficiency.

All these measures combined with the reduction in the top rate of stamp duty for agricultural land from 9% to 6% should help improve mobility of agricultural land and are substantial in reducing the set-up cost for young farmers. This extensive range of measures helps to improve the age profile of farming through early farm transfer or by encouraging greater levels of leasing, land swaps or farm consolidation allowing younger, more productive farmers to enter the industry.

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The Minister's decision to withdraw installation aid and the early retirement scheme is disgraceful. He accepts that 8% of farm holders under the age of 35 is an acceptable EU norm at a time when large global challenges face farming. Nearly 50% of the farm-owning population are of an age to qualify for the early retirement scheme.

I will give the Minister a word of warning. The Minister is going to Tullamore this evening to talk about the sheep industry. While I accept the sheep industry is in crisis, if he were to attempt to create a nest egg to fund another pet scheme by robbing Peter to pay Paul, farmers will not stand for it.

Will the Minister accept that in the absence of installation aid and the early retirement scheme, the availability of the stamp duty relief on the transfer of family farms will be irrelevant? The number of farmers availing of the stamp duty exemption will come to a standstill. Without installation aid and the early retirement scheme, the stamp duty exemption is useless. These schemes comprised a three-pronged attack to address the age profile issue in farming. In one fell swoop the removal of these two schemes will undermine the effort to get younger people into agriculture.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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We are not robbing Peter to pay Paul. Resources available to the Department are being allocated. Next year, in excess of €9 million will be paid out in new installation aid scheme approvals. Those are applications that are in hand at present and will be processed and approved in 2009. Up to €48 million will be paid out under the early retirement scheme. The position is that both schemes have been suspended for new applicants. I have stated clearly in meetings with Deputies from all parties and the farming organisations that we will be reviewing the suspension of both schemes when financial resources allow us to do so.

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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Those young people whose parents may have been transferring the farm had legitimate expectation, to use legal terminology. What about those cases where a young person enrols this year at agricultural college to do a green certificate or the case of a farmer with a lease signed but waiting for the Revenue to stamp it? Notwithstanding the Minister's budget day announcement of the suspension of the two schemes, will applicants who have legitimate expectation be accommodated? Has the Minister taken legal advice from the Attorney General on this matter?

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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The decision to suspend both schemes to new applicants was due to budgetary constraints. I have already indicated that those people who have had their completed applications with the Department — there are approximately 600 — will be processed. When they meet the necessary criteria and are approved, funding is in place——

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The Minister is avoiding the issue and the question. It is not about the applications already in but the people who have legitimate expectations. I am asking about those people, who through no fault of their own, were waiting for leases to be stamped by Revenue or are completing a green certificate at agricultural college and believed they could avail of the scheme.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I have outlined clearly that both schemes are suspended for new applicants. The limiting of the suspension of the schemes will be considered at the earliest opportunity but with regard to the current budgetary constraints. In 2009 in excess of €9 million will be allocated and approved for the young farmer installation aid scheme and €48 million will be paid out in the early retirement scheme.

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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The Minister is avoiding the issue.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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We will move to Question No. 2 in the name of Deputy Seán Sherlock.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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I will get the same answer that Deputy Michael Creed got.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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It will be a shorter one.

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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It will probably be more relevant.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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The last question was relevant. If the Deputy wants to dismiss——

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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With all due respect, it was not very relevant. It was cold comfort to people who were hoping to avail of the schemes.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Deputy Creed, please allow Deputy Sherlock's question to be answered.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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Question 2: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he will reverse the decision to cut €10 million from the early retirement scheme and installation aid scheme which have been shut down to new applicants; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37719/08]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Against the background of the deterioration in public finances, my approach in preparing the 2009 Estimates for the Department was to focus available resources on the measures that allow us to maintain and grow the productive capacity of the agrifood sector.

There has been a high level of investment in developing this sector in recent years, with the commitment of significant financial resources to areas such as the rural environment scheme, where the rates of grant had been increased by 17%, the new suckler cow scheme and the farm waste management scheme. Expenditure for the farm waste management scheme in 2008 will exceed €375 million following the recent provision of an additional €195 million. The first payments under the new suckler cow scheme will issue later this year.

As I have chosen to protect expenditure in certain areas, expenditure in other areas has to be curtailed. I have made provision of €56.7 million to meet current commitments in the early retirement from farming and the young farmers' installation aid scheme. This level of funding means that, for the present, new applications for these schemes are suspended.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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It is clear from the earlier reply to Deputy Michael Creed that the Minister will not budge on this issue. Today, a recently widowed lady contacted me whose son wishes to take over the family farm holding. He would have been an ideal applicant for these two schemes. However, as they were going through a process of grant of probate, he was not in a position to send his application before 14 October. The legal instrument went against him and took longer than anticipated. Will the Minister allow for some degree of discretion and fairness for those who were in the process of applying? On 14 October the two schemes were cut down in one fell swoop without any notice period. That did not allow individuals, such as those I have just mentioned, to have some fairness in submitting their applications. If they had some notice, they might have come into the scheme. Cutting the schemes off on 14 October was the wrong way to go about it. Will the Minister revisit his decisions for the sake of equity and fairness?

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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Like Deputy Sherlock, I have spoken to people who were in the process of preparing their applications, whether under the early retirement scheme or the young farmers' installation scheme, and I know of the disappointment and the break in planning for handing on the farm to the next generation that results. There is never an easy time to suspend or, as has happened in the past, to abolish schemes. This is a suspension of the scheme. When speaking to public representatives, farm organisations and individual farmers I indicated to them that I have asked the Department to bear in mind that when we are in a position to reopen the scheme, the people who had been in the process of preparing applications for submission to the Department should be the first to be processed and considered.

Over the past few months there has been a considerable increase in the number of applications submitted under the young farmers' installation scheme. As Deputy Sherlock knows, there have been a number of early retirement schemes, in the first of which more than 10,000 people participated, while there have been a few thousand participants in the more recent scheme. The figure of €48 million to be paid out next year under the early retirement scheme is significant, as is the €9 million that we have——

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Deputy Sherlock for a brief supplementary.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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Nobody questions the validity of the scheme or its success. We all agree that Government policy has been sound in this regard. What we are asking for is some degree of discretion. There should be an extension beyond 14 October to allow these people to make their applications. There must be some degree of flexibility on this issue. As has already been said, those people who were on the point of making their applications had a reasonable expectation, because they had gone through the process of applying, that they would be within the timeframe. The Minister has carried out a miserly and mean-spirited act towards those who set out in good faith to participate in the scheme. It is a sad indictment of current Government policy.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I do not accept Deputy Sherlock's contention. I can empathise fully——

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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The Minister should tell that to the widow I mentioned.

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I have spoken to as many people as Deputy Sherlock who are disappointed that the scheme has been suspended for the present. In the past, when the Deputy's own party was in Government, a scheme was suspended even for those whose applications were with the Department. In this scheme, only entry for new applicants has been suspended, and all applicants who have submitted their completed application forms will be processed and approved if they meet the necessary criteria. I do not think anybody has tried, as the previous Deputy did, to dismiss the fact that €65 million has been forgone in taxation measures which are of benefit to young farmers. It is important to put that on the record of the House.

Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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There will be nobody availing of it without the installation aid.

Tom Sheahan (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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On a point of order——

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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On a point of order, Deputy Sheahan.

Tom Sheahan (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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In this scheme, as the Minister has said——

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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That is not a point of order.

Tom Sheahan (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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Yes.

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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This is a priority question and is confined to the Deputies whose names appear on it. Unless the Deputy has a point relating to the order of the House, I must proceed.

Tom Sheahan (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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With no date for the resumption of this——

Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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That is not a point of order.

Tom Sheahan (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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The scheme has been put back. The applicants could be 40 years of age by the time the scheme is resumed.