Fair Deal scheme crippling farm families - Mayo TD

THE Fair Deal scheme is crippling intergenerational farming, Mayo TD Paul Lawless told the Dáil this week.

Many farming families find themselves falling outside the requirements for the three year cap and end up in a situation where they have to sell off the family farm.

Deputy Lawless said he was at an IFA meeting recently where the scheme was discussed. “One man remarked ‘I’m better to die before having to go into a nursing home, if I want to give as much of my land as possible to my family’.

“It is shocking to think that we have created a climate where farmers feel so disenfranchised about the future.”

Deputy Lawless said the scheme is crippling farm families. “It is costing farm families significantly. Families who have built up their farms over generations and this is happening as a result of the three year cap in relation to the Fair Deal scheme.”

He also highlighted the bureaucracy and red tape in relation to the scheme. Many families don’t realise how restrictive it is, he said, and can end up missing out based on minute details.

For example, the land has to be handed over to a successory five years before entering a nursing home and this successor must be actively farming the land.

“I know of one family where they had passed the land onto their son who was actively farming. They believed they had satisfied all of the criteria around the Fair Deal scheme but because their son went travelling for six months they did not qualify as he was out of the country during those five years.”

The bureaucracy and criteria need to be addressed, he said.

“It is unfair that non farming families can qualify more easily but there are onerous and confusing restrictions placed on farmers. Many are unaware of issues regarding succession or leased land until they find themselves in a vulnerable time needing to contemplate nursing home care.

“The Fair Deal scheme forces people to sell the family farm when they don’t meet the criteria. If this does not change then we will be sentencing a whole generation of family farms to the grave.

“Supporting the agricultural sector means taking actual concrete steps to protect it.”