Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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1221. To ask the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine his plans to implement a further early retirement scheme which will allow older farmers to retire and encourage younger farmers to take over; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [38397/13]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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Following the suspension of the Early Retirement Scheme on 14 October, 2008, due to budgetary constraints, it became apparent that there was a number of farmers who had their preparations to apply for the Scheme completed or close to completion at that point. The Scheme was re-opened temporarily on 23 September 2009 with limited additional funding with a view to accepting as many as possible of the applications that fell into this category. I have no plans to re-open this Scheme or introduce another Scheme at this time.