Willie Penrose (Westmeath, Labour)
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Question 241: To ask the Minister for Agriculture and Food if she will review the scheme for early retirement from farming; if she will take steps to deem all applications received by her Department for participation in the scheme as joint ownership rather than joint management, and thereby accept the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food, to include all past applications in such a review along the aforesaid lines; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8965/07]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture published its report on the Early Retirement Schemes in February 2005. One of the Committee`s recommendations was that all joint management cases should be re-classified retrospectively as joint ownership, and appropriate refunds made to the participants affected.

I responded in detail to the report in September 2005 and explained that, unfortunately, the Scheme does not allow for such retrospective changes unless there are new facts or evidence that show that individual applications were wrongly classified in the first place. The three application types under the Scheme (sole application, joint ownership and joint management) were clearly set down in the Department's Guidelines and the Scheme documents. The requirement for the deduction of both spouses' national retirement pensions under the joint management arrangement was also clearly stated. The participants, in consultation with their agricultural and/or legal advisors, had an opportunity to decide on how to structure the application to their best advantage, having regard to their individual circumstances and the Scheme conditions. My Department dealt with each application in accordance with the Scheme conditions.