More power to retired farmers’ representative
1. Where the transferee inherits the farm of the retired farmer, he/she can inherit established entitlements.
2. Farmers who take over the farm of the retired farmer can apply to the national reserve for entitlements.
3. Farmers who entered the early retirement scheme (ERS) with entitlements after the reference period can have those entitlements activated in 2005.
I am not a member of the ERS or any farm body: I am just intrigued by the weavers of tangled webs.
Eamon Donovan of Retired Farmers for Justice, and his lieutenants, fought a sustained campaign on behalf of retired farmers since their plight was discovered over a year ago. They achieved a lot without offending or alienating anybody.
Well-attended meetings were held throughout the country regarding the injustices visited on retired farmers. Meetings were held with the Minister for Agriculture and his officials. Submissions were made to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food and to the mid-term review section at the Department of Agriculture.
A lot was achieved, but many anomalies remain with the early retirement scheme: bureaucracy, low pension income, non indexed-linked pensions, deduction of the old-age pension from farm retirement pension and problems with transferees.
Seemingly, while Mr Donovan and his team battled EU bureaucracy, the farm bodies remained uninterested.
With Mr Donovan’s knowledge and experience, John Dillon should take him under the umbrella of the IFA and put him in charge of the interests of farmers in the ERS.
Currently, farmers in the ERS represent 9% of all farmers. This percentage will increase in the future and retired farmers should have strong representation.
John Byrne,
35, Wolfe Tone Street,
Sligo.
