Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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23. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if he will reverse the changes made to farm assist with respect to income disregards given that it has had a serious negative affect on the income levels of already struggling farming families; if he will carry out an analysis to assess the impact that the changes have made on those families; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18688/16]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The farm assist scheme provides support for farmers on low incomes and is similar to jobseeker’s allowance. Farm assist recipients retain the advantages of the jobseeker’s allowance scheme such as the retention of secondary benefits and access to activation programmes. The 2016 Revised Estimates for my Department provide for expenditure of almost €85 million on the farm assist scheme.

Changes introduced in Budgets 2012 and 2013 brought farm assist into closer alignment with the jobseeker’s allowance scheme’s treatment of self-employed people. Farm families with the lowest income were least impacted by these changes as the headline rates of farm assist were maintained.

Farm assist customers continue to receive more beneficial treatment than other self-employed persons as payments received under the Agri-Environment Options Scheme (AEOS), Green Low-Carbon Agri-Environment Scheme (GLAS) or Special Area of Conservation (SAC) schemes are assessed separately from other farm income. Farm Assist remains a flexible payment and any farmer experiencing lower levels of income or cash-flow issues, due for example to bad weather, can ask his local INTREO office to review the level of means applying to his claim.

The Programme for Government contains the commitment to undertake a "Review of the Farm Assist Scheme, recognising the challenges facing farmers on low incomes". I have asked my officials to review the farm assist scheme from a policy and an administrative point of view.

Any changes to the farm assist scheme will have to be considered in a budgetary context.