Tom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent)
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307. To ask the Minister for Finance his plans to introduce measures similar to France to alleviate the reduction in milk prices in which dairy farmers are predicted to lose over €500 million in 2015 and the French initiative proposed is to delay the payment of income tax for three months to support its framers; if he will introduce a similar initiative to help producers cope with the falling prices; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30674/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I have no plans to introduce a scheme that would allow farmers to delay payment of taxes. As the Deputy will be aware, income averaging is available to farmers in recognition of the volatility of their income, which I believe is ultimately more beneficial than delaying the payment of tax.

The Deputy may be aware that following the review of agri-tax measures that was carried out in 2014, I amended the income averaging scheme for farmers to extend the period over which income can be averaged from three years to five, in order to give more scope for income smoothing within a commodity price cycle.