Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)

I join in the call for a debate on agriculture. I accept that substantial progress has been made in the past two decades in the area of agriculture but in regard to the recent budget I have two concerns that I outlined to the Minister recently. I ask the Deputy Leader for a debate on this important issue, particularly as it relates to the farm retirement scheme. Currently there are approximately 300 participants nationwide, which is not a large number of people. They have done their preparation. Their sons or daughters have completed their education. In many instances the parents have gone to their solicitor, the land has been transferred, the stamp duty has been paid and they were on the verge of getting paid. I accept the scheme has only been suspended but a number of hard cases have arisen because perhaps only one third of those 300 farmers, be they male or female, have made their preparation. Their position should be looked at sympathetically. Where the sons or daughters have completed the two or three years' college training and the parents have decided, in good faith, to transfer the land subject to certain conditions, those cases should be re-examined.

On the same issue, some of the most severely disadvantaged farmers I represent, and this would apply to areas in the west and south of Kerry, were hit in the same way when the hectarage limit for the area aid payments was reduced from 45 to 34 hectares. That issue should be re-examined. It is a small amount of money but it is very important to the most disadvantaged. I attended a meeting in the Beara Peninsula last night at which I met farmers who on occasion have to bring feedstuffs or other agricultural products from Cork, which is a distance of 100 miles. Those people are out on a limb and, unfortunately, are the hardest hit. They are severely disadvantaged, and that has been acknowledged not alone in Ireland for the past 40 years but also in Europe. Some of these payments are EU backed.

I ask the Minister to examine the cuts sympathetically. I accept some of them have only been suspended but they are affecting young farmers who are ready to take over their parents' farms. There is a problem in rural Ireland in that young farmers, be they male or female, are walking away from the land. They do not see a future in farming, and I ask that those who are prepared to take over should be given that chance. In the past two years the trend has been bucked in that for the first time in the past decade there has been a huge increase in the numbers, both male and female, attending farming colleges. That is encouraging and we should use that important initiative taken by the young people to try to keep them on the land and keep rural Ireland alive.