A social welfare scheme for asset millionaires

FROM now on, farmers will receive an annual handout of tens of thousands of euro, and all they will have to do is put up their hands and say ‘anseo’.

I’m not anti-farmer, but I think it beggars belief that someone with assets worth a few million should require a stipend of a €1,000 per week to keep going.

Perhaps the quid pro quo is that farmers will be prepared to produce food at a nominal profit. Is this largesse on the part of the taxpayer the result of a Brussels’ directive or is it some Irish solution to an Irish problem?

I gather there is no unanimity even among farmers on the issue. There’s a belief that the whole scheme is tainted by political cronyism and by self-serving opportunism on the part of some farm leaders. Some single farm payments dwarf Charles Haughey’s pensions, yet it seems the poorest farmers are virtually excluded.

It seems a perverse way of allocating what is essentially a social welfare payment. Could the Minister for Agriculture explain the scheme to the public so that we know what exactly we are paying into as EU taxpayers?

John Maher

76 O’Connell Street

Dungarvan

Co Waterford