Charlie McConalogue (Donegal, Fianna Fail)
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301. To ask the Minister for Social Protection if the new farm assist criteria announced in budget 2017 will be applied to new farm assist applications; if not, the date when the new criteria will come into effect; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31530/16]

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 €85 million on the farm assist scheme.

Budget 2017 introduces new measures in relation to the assessment of means for farm assist. These include income from off-farm self-employment which will now be assessed at 70%, down from 100%, with an additional annual disregard of €254 for each of the first two children and €381 for the third and subsequent children.

The Government has announced that these new measures contained in Budget 2017 will take effect in March 2017 for both existing and new farm assist applications.