Noel Coonan (Fine Gael)

There is a precedent for this amendment in that previous proposed legislation by a former Minister for Agriculture and Food allowed for a 50% write-off of annuities. We all want to make the Bill more attractive. The Government is putting forward a lesser proposal than on the previous occasion, which did not prove successful and was not taken up by the desired amount of farmers. The Bill should offer provisions at least as attractive as those previously available. This amendment deals only with annuity, not arrears. As I pointed out regarding the previous amendment, the cost to the Department of the collection of arrears is outweighing the benefits. If one allows for what the Department will lose by dropping the provision to 50%, thus making it more attractive to farmers, even including the collection cost, it is of benefit to the Department.

In view of the Minister's refusal to increase the threshold as proposed in the first amendment, I shall press this amendment. The legislation must be attractive for the farming community and we must finally get rid of the land annuities. The Minister spoke about arrears in her reply to the last amendment but she has overlooked a point. When this contract was given by the Land Commission to farmers, there was a period of high interest rates. The Minister observed that rates were on occasion in excess of 11%; they were periodically in excess of 18% and 20%. Much of the money accrued over those years was interest payments by farmers.

The Minister also spoke about assets. It is important to recognise that the members of the farming community who took possession of land from land divisions put significant investment into that land to modernise, reclaim and make it productive. This increased the standard of living in rural Ireland and also the standard of food produced. The Minister must give due recognition to this achievement. I propose, therefore, that the write-off rate be set at 50% rather than the 25% proposed in the Bill.