Pat Breen (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Question 178: To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food further to Parliamentary Question No. 564 of 16 February 2010, the reason a person (details supplied) in County Clare has been refused a scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16118/10]

Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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My Department was not in a position to approve the application from the person-named under the Early Retirement Scheme as the scheme conditions were not met. In order to qualify as a 'Category A' application under the scheme, the proposed transferee of the applicant's land must be approved for payment under the Young Farmers' Installation Scheme. This requirement was not met and the Young Farmer's Installation Scheme is now closed to new applicants.

My Department wrote to the person named on 8 February 2010, offering him the option of resubmitting his application as a 'Category B' application under the scheme. In order to be categorized as 'Category B', the proposed transferee must be farming a minimum of 5 hectares of enlargement land (or 5 enlargement production units in the case of intensive enterprises) in addition to the area of land being transferred for pension scheme purposes or the production unit capacity received from the transferor. The person named has until 30 April 2010 to resubmit an application on this basis. To date no reply has been received.